For Out of the Blue Theatre Company, thinking outside the box is an art form.
The student theater company is welcoming a new era by rebranding its social media and how it connects with the student body, said Nick Alcorn, the company’s development director. The third-year theater student said Out of the Blue has introduced a new logo that features a singular cloud, which is meant to symbolize the company’s originality and independence. Alcorn said the club is also trying to be more playful in the ways it provides rollouts of information and introductions of board members to highlight its unconventional approach to theater.
“We love people who love weird things,” Alcorn said. “One thing about student theater is we always need people to do anything. So whether it’s acting in a show, designing for a show, helping on the stage management team or any other sort of involvement in helping get a show running … we always appreciate that.”
Brad Brady, the marketing coordinator for Out of the Blue, said he joined the company last year while the organization was in the process of a relaunch, prompted by a large class of previous members graduating from UCLA. The third-year theater student said the organization’s group of about 10 board members includes students who are not involved in UCLA’s theater department as their area of academic study, which helps bring a fresh perspective to the organization. Brady – who said he did not become involved in theater until his junior year of high school – added that any student involved in an Out of the Blue production, from producing to acting, is unofficially part of the club.
In his role as marketing coordinator, Brady said he develops the images and motifs that Out of the Blue uses for its Instagram page to encourage audiences to see a play. For its spring 2025 production of “Tesla,” Brady said the company used a color palette of dark blues and yellows to represent the energy of engineering and electricity, while distorted photographs reinforced the play’s experimental nature. Since the audience cannot be expected to read the entire script before deciding to see a play, Brady said a script of 50 pages or more must be condensed to only six or seven Instagram posts.
“The best way to make someone excited about theater is through word of mouth,” Brady said. “If a friend of theirs tells them, ‘Hey, last quarter I saw a show from this theater company, and it blew me away. It was fun, engaging and I had a great time.’ Now maybe them and their friend are going to go pick up tickets and see our show next quarter.”
Out of the Blue aims to hold one production each quarter in the upcoming school year, Brady said. Smaller productions might have a cast and crew of eight to 10 people, he said, whereas a more extravagant musical, for example, might have almost 40 cast and crew members. The production for “Tesla” fell somewhere in the middle, with about 20 students working on the play, he added.
Mia Perez, a second-year theater student and one of the co-artistic directors for Out of the Blue, said she participates in the curation of the company’s productions for the upcoming year. She said she had not participated in a student theater show at UCLA before joining the company but was drawn to the organization’s mission statement of creating experimental theater, as well as its welcoming environment. Increasing participation of first-year students and securing venue spaces for performances are both goals for the upcoming year, Perez said.
“Out of the Blue, it really caters to a lot of different audiences,” Perez said. “We can do original student work. We can do work that exists but take a different spin on it. … Whatever crazy idea you’ve ever had, you can bring it to us, and we’ll want to work on it.”
When it comes to the experimentalism imbued through Out of the Blue’s approach to contemporary theater, Brady said the company strives to challenge norms and break out of preexisting narratives. As opposed to most musicals that might follow a typical plot structure while following the journey of a protagonist, Brady said experimental theater can reimagine this form through directorial choices that captivate the audience and shift the focus of a story from a few characters to a broader ensemble cast. He added that he hopes to see more submissions of original plays from student writers this coming year to bring new, fresh ideas to the stage.
The student-led productions put on by Out of the Blue are more reliant on student collaboration than productions put on by the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, Alcorn said. Working together to make a project come to life and managing limited funds can build valuable experience, Alcorn said, while also allowing for more art to be created from a student perspective. He added that the heart imbued through student-led productions are complemented by the guidance and mentorship provided by TFT.
“By stripping away a lot of the excess of producing theater – whatever that is – and show by show, there’s a lot of revealing the rawness of things,” Alcorn said. “Either by finding the weirdness in whatever it is, or finding a more direct way … with the storytelling.”
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