SIERRA VISTA — Students looking to really dive into acting and play production will have that opportunity at Cochise College this fall.
The college is offering Theatre Workshop on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, taught by instructor Lucinda Sage-Midgorden. The class is unique in that it will combine with Bisbee’s Obscure Productions to produce a play, “The Skin of Our Teeth” by Thornton Wilder, in November and December.
Actors from Bisbee’s Obscure Productions and the Bisbee Order of Oddvarks improvise a family scene from “The Skin of Our Teeth” by Thornton Wilder. From left, Sebastian Bonfim, Liz Lockwood, Zak Jacob, Rae E. Jones, Delani Cody, Molly Hottel, Christa Smith. (Photo by C. Gilles-Brown, BOP)
Students won’t be sitting in desks or writing papers. Instead, they’ll get a part in the play and help behind the scenes with props, costumes and other tech tasks. Sage-Midgorden said she’s excited to provide something a little more intense in theater arts beyond introductory and acting classes.
“This is an experiential kind of thing,” Sage-Midgorden said. “It’s performance-based. Students come to rehearsals, gather costumes, learn lines — it’s not structured like a regular class.”
Classes will be held at the Sierra Vista campus in August and September, including three trips to Bisbee to hold auditions and meet with the cast from Bisbee’s Obscure Productions. In October, students will travel regularly to Bisbee for rehearsals, and transportation can be arranged for students who don’t have a car. When it gets closer to showtime, rehearsals will be held on the weekends.
Rae Jones and Gilles Brown, who both head up Bisbee’s Obscure Productions and teach theater classes at the Cochise College Douglas campus, said they’re thrilled to add some younger actors to their typically older cast.
“This is a year for branching out,” Brown said. “With community theater, it’s harder to get young people. They’re starting their lives and their families. They’re in that period when people take some time away from hobbies, and theater is one of those things. Once they get things in their lives under control, they’re likely to do theater again.”
Brown said Bisbee’s Obscure Productions, which will celebrate its 10th season this year, works on about five productions per year, typically three plays and a couple of variety shows. The community theater company has called the Central School Project building its home for the past four years.
Sage-Midgorden, who has been teaching theater in the area for the last decade, chose Wilder’s play for the project. She said the play calls for about 20 actors, with options to double up on parts if necessary.
“It’s a play I’ve loved since I was an undergraduate theater student,” she said. “I have a large library of plays, and when I was going through it, I thought it was the one we needed, because it has older people in it and younger people in it, so it’s good for the actors of Bisbee’s Obscure Productions and the actors of the college.”
“The Skin of Our Teeth” was written in 1942 and won the 1943 Pulitzer Prize for drama. According to the official Wilder website, the play combines “farce, burlesque, and satire, and elements of the comic strip,” and the plot “depicts an Everyman Family as it narrowly escapes one end-of-the-world disaster after another, from the Ice Age to flood to war.”
In each disastrous scenario, the play explains, we’ve managed to survive — by the skin of our teeth.
“Part of the reason why I chose this is it was written shortly after the Great Depression,” Sage-Midgorden said. “And we’re sort of there right now. It seems like everything’s falling apart, but we’re going to make it. That’s what I’m hoping people will get out of it.”
The Class
THE 110: Theatre Workshop
Tuesday/Thursday, 6:15-7:30 p.m.
Cochise College Sierra Vista campus
Apply and register: (520) 515-5336
More Liberal Arts classes …
Check out the upcoming fall schedule
The Play
“The Skin of Our Teeth”
Presented at the Central School Project
Showtimes:
Nov. 30 & Dec. 1: 7:30 p.m.
Dec. 2: 3 p.m.
Dec. 7 & 8: 7:30 p.m.
Dec. 9: 3 p.m.
Tickets
$10 in advance, $12 at the door
$6 for children and students with ID at the door only
Advance tickets at
Atalanta’s Music & Books and the Bisbee Food Coop
Call 432-2901 for credit card sales or
by mail (check or MO) at PO Box 277, Bisbee AZ 85603
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