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Festival composed of six student plays
FESTIVAL from page 7
Ludwig’s hilarious farce “Lend Me a
i Tenor.”
j On Thursday, Scott Raymond’s
“Standby” will be the featured reading.
I Raymond based the play off his friends,
► and one actor even plays Raymond.
I Saturday’s readings feature “Some
Little Talk A While” by Lisa Verigin,
and “Pieces of Time” by Joseph
* McClanahan.
“Some Little Talk A While” tells
the story of a woman who becomes
obsessed with characters in history.
1 “Pieces ofTime” is a monologue of
I a man turning 30 who is moving from
his house. As he packs up, the man
reflects on his life and his relationships.
L
The festival organizers chose to
have staged readings of the plays
because of time constraints.
The readings enable playwrights to
get their work in front of an audience
with minimal work. Technical elements
are kept to a minimum, and rehearsal
time is shorter because the actors need
not memorize their lines.
Since staged readings usually fea
ture an excerpt of die work, it is not nec
essary to have a play ready for a full
production. Many of this festival’s
plays are works in progress.
While preparing for this festival,
the six playwrights have kept a hands
off approach. The playwrights have
limited their involvement in the
rehearsals to watching a few read
throughs and having brief discussions
with die directors.
Verigin said she wanted to see how
the play evolved without her input.
“When you’re writing something,
you get very caught up. You lose per
spective,” Verigin said.
Playwrights also will gain experi
ence through audience feedback.
Following each staged reading, the
cast, director and playwright will lead a
short response sessioa
If the festival succeeds, it may
become a staple of the Theatrix season.
Key said audiences who took a chance
on the festival would be surprised.
“There’s some really good stuff
going on behind closed doors,” she
said.
Actor s work tackles controversial diversity issues
j RAZ from page 7
“Once trust is built, you can say
anything,” Raz said.
The stream of controversial topics
continued in 1998. Raz worked with an
architecture class on a tree-speech pro
ject that was a reaction to former
English Assistant Professor David
Hibler’s allegedly racist comments in
an e-mail.
Heavy topics are exactly what
actors need to confront, he said. It is
their job to “speak die truth about things
that are hard to speak the truth about,”
he said.
It is something he is committed to,
even when he is not working specifical
ly on diversity training at UNL.
Though Raz, a playwright, actor
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and circus performer, is often commis
sioned to write plays, he finds time to
explore his roots, and his life in works
such as 1990’s “Father-Land” and
“Birth Mark,” his latest endeavor.
Both explore issues of Jewish her
itage and the theme of identity, which
appear in several of his works.
Raz also strives to act in projects
that are meaningful, and when he finds
them, his commitment to them is
strong. The allure of commercial work
won’t keep him from, what really mat
ters to him.
“For a lot of actors, television
shows or movies trump other things,”
he said. “To me, money isn’t every
thing.”
The proof lies in the dedication Raz
has shown to projects in the past. In one
case, he was working on a play that last
ed three months when he got an offer to
do an eight-day television part.
Despite the variance in time com
mitments, the two paid the same
amount: $800. But since Raz already
had signed on to the play, he said there
was no way he was going to take the
television show.
The casting director didn’t under
stand, he said. She had never heard of
anything like that before.
Decisions like that aren’t common
in showbiz, and they cause another
problem to arise. Raz said.
“It really pistes your agent off.”
oy placing commiunems over proi
it, Raz has impressed plenty of people
in the performance community. Ron
Bowlin, the director of the Artist
Diversity Program, is one of those peo
ple. Bowlin has commented on Raz’s
dedication to fostering a cross-cultural
understanding
“I think Jeff enjoys variety,” Bowlin
said. “I think the opportunity that we
offer him here 10 do this kind of work is
something that he values.”
The program 's main focus is to pro
mote a greater appreciation for diversi
ty by bringing in people from a variety
of cultural backgrounds to UNL for
periods of one to five weeks.
In his current two-week visit, Raz
will not be taking on a large project
such as the plays he put together in ’96
and’97.
Instead he is visiting separate class
es and doing in class explorations of
how stereotypes form.
Also, the Artist Diversity Project
has extended to high schools, and Raz
is dividing his time between visiting
them and UNL classes.
Next week his new play, “Birth
Mark,” which grew out of the adoption
of his son. opens at the Lincoln
Community Playhouse.
And he’ll return next year, ready to
inform and explore difficult topics.
The quality of UNL’s program,
unparalleled by any university he has
come into contact with, will keep him
coming back, he said even if it means
missing out on larger financial opportu
nities.
One of the reasons behind its quali
ty, he said reaches back to that feeling
of trust that the Midwest fosters, and
that the program has mastered.
“When you trust artists, you get
people willing to fly long distances,
willing enough to make this work.” Raz
said
And Raz said he will live up to that
trust
Even if it upsets his agent.
