STUDENT THEATER SHOWCASE OFFERS DIFFERENT SHOWS EACH TIME

Central Wyoming College’s tenth annual showcase of student-directed plays provides two different evenings of comedy, music and drama over a four-day period.

The Showcase is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Feb. 7, 8 and 9, and a 2:30 p.m. matinee on Sunday, Feb. 10. The Thursday and Saturday performances feature the work of group A and on Friday and Sunday, group B entertains audiences.

Tickets for the show are free though it is suggested audience members reserve tickets through the Arts Center Box Office because seating at each performance is limited to 90. The actors perform “arena style” in the Arts Center’s Dance Studio. Tickets may be ordered online at www.tickets.cwc.edu or by calling 855-2002. The Box Office is open 3-6 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Eleven directors have been selected to showcase their talents that feature multiple actors during the four performance dates, said Director Mike Myers. The showcase in past years has been a culminating event to a spring directing course, but with conflicting schedules, the Showcase dates have been “swapped out” with the normal dates for the spring musical.

This year’s theater shorts are “light on drama and heavy on comedy,” Myers said. A one-act mini-musical is performed during one of the two sessions. Two students, Aaron King and Laurence Mills, have written original plays for the Showcase. Myers rates both evenings of shows as PG-13.

The director argues the Showcase is probably the most important show the theater department does because the students are totally in charge of the production.

“They have to do everything,” he said, which includes lighting and costume design, properties, and pulling props. It also requires a great deal of team work as each director is sharing actors and the performance/rehearsal space. “They have to get it coordinated to make it happen.”