“School of Rock” opens like a concert, complete with smoke, sweeping red lights and a rock band performing with guitars and drums. Then walls of a bedroom, and later, school maps and doors slide in, transitioning the concert opening into a musical and introducing the reality of the main character’s unsuccessful music career. Read more...
Photo: (Courtesy of Matthew Murphy)
Student directors put the spotlight on class conflict for Project II. The UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television’s annual spring showcase, Project II, will feature the works of two graduate directing students: “The Exception and the Rule,” directed by Jean Carlo Yunén, and “Woyzeck,” directed by Mark Anthony Vallejo. Read more...
Photo: The UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television’s spring showcase Project II will continue through Saturday. It will feature play adaptations of two graduate students. (Isa Saalabi/Daily Bruin)
Characters inspired by Yoruban gods will layer with the gritty realism of an impoverished Louisiana town to create the mythical world of the upcoming play, “In the Red and Brown Water.” Jayongela Wilder, graduate student in directing and the play’s director, said the duality of magic and realism was one of the many ways that the show works to subvert the limited and stereotypical representation of women and people of color in conventional theater. Read more...
Photo: Second-year theater student Aliyah Turner portrays the main character Oya “In the Red and Brown Water.” While rehearsing for the production, Turner said she tried to give more agency to her character by making her movements the driving force in choreographed scenes. (Isa Saalabi/Daily Bruin)
Cornell Christianson uses a scene from the sci-fi film “Invaders from Mars” as the backdrop for his latest musical. Set in front of images of a sandy hill, characters are captured by aliens who have just descended from their spaceship. Read more...
Photo: Alumnus Cornell Christianson grew up watching sci-fi movies and collecting comic books, which inspired his musical “It Came From Beyond.” The off-Broadway show opened April 10 at St. Luke’s Theatre and will run every Tuesday until July. (Courtesy of Cornell Christianson)
The literary hub of Powell Library and performance space of Royce Hall will come together for an immersive, staged reading experience. The Saratoga International Theater Institute Company’s “the theater is a blank page,” which will run from April 29 to May 12, entwines literature and theater in three hours. Read more...
Photo: Lighting and set designer Brian H. Scott poses with some of the set materials from “the theater is a blank page.” During the performance, actors will lead audience members through various sets. One installation features five Saratoga International Theater Institute Company cast members simultaneously reading one of Virginia Woolf’s novels out loud. (Anna Moreno-Takegami/Daily Bruin)
Presenters at Visionworlds used virtual reality to turn pancreatic beta cells into a bustling cityscape with anatomic infrastructure. The symposium, which will take place at the UCLA IDEAS campus April 28, aims to show how VR can be integrated into the design process of architectural environments, said Güvenç Özel, lead faculty member and program advisor of IDEAS. Read more...
Photo: (Claire Sun/Daily Bruin)
Psypher is a dance group that merges both mental health and dance. Matthew Diep, the founder and a fourth-year psychology student, speaks about the goal of the group and this quarter’s topic: relationships. Read more...
