Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 20, 1993 TAG: 9304200283
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOE KENNEDY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
Having the opportunity to perform the play three times in the Washington, D.C., art center's Terrace Theatre during the American College Theatre Festival was indeed an honor. Plays from only five schools were chosen from among 832 student productions in eight regions in the United States, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
But the logistics of getting it there, and the timing, near the end of the spring semester, caused complications.
For theater arts majors, faculty and staff, spring is the season for graduate student productions, the annual spring play, preparations for final exams and other end-of-the-year time takers.
Lighting designer Seth Rapaport, 24, sees the performances, which began Monday night and continue with shows at 2 and 7 p.m. today, as "an opportunity to get some exposure I really want to get at this point in my career."
Unfortunately, he notes, "This is show number two of four in a week for me" - a fact that propelled him back to Blacksburg before the curtain even rose.
"I'm hopeful this will help us get agents or jobs," says Cappelli S. Burless II, a 20-year-old sophomore from Alexandria, who plays Cory Maxson, son of the troubled protagonist, Troy Maxson, portrayed by guest artist Junious Leak. But he also has academics to worry about.
For Bill Barksdale, an assistant professor and the play's technical director, the problems are purely physical. "Fences" features a dominating set, which was not built for the road. Storing the material has been a concern, and he and his workers have spent time converting it to quasi-portable condition, as well. They have replaced nails and screws with bolts and loose-pin hinges, for example, a step necessitated by the three-hour set-up and take-down times they've been allotted by the Kennedy Center.
"Much of what we do is temporary," Barksdale notes. But three up-and-downs in two days is unusual even for college theater. And he is involved with four campus productions in the next two weeks.
There is a good side to the trouble, of course. Tech's visit to Washington puts it in good company. The other productions are from Cal State-Fullerton, Cal State-Fresno, Emporia State University in Kansas and Oakland University in Rochester, Mich., plus, in the international category, the Institute of Theatre from Barcelona, Spain.
"All of them are national winners," says David Young, the festival's producing director. The festival is a showcase of what the judges think are some of the top student productions in the country. As for "Fences," Young says, "the fact that the judges chose it out of 832 is pretty complimentary."
The exposure should be good for everyone, says Don Drapeau, head of Tech's theater arts department.
"It provides the university with the opportunity to let the rest of the world know that we do more than just deal with grass and cows and sheep - the image everybody has . . . that it's all about engineers and farmers. That's not what the university is at all."
It also shows that a major school where blacks constitute only 1,135 of the 23,637 graduate and undergraduate students can pull off, in outstanding fashion, a play about black life with an all-black cast and a black director.
That, says 20-year-old Darryl Gibson, who portrays the brain-damaged Gabe, is "fabulous. It's something Virginia Tech has needed."
The accomplishment reflects the increasing influence and number of racial minorities on the campus, he says. When he arrived in Blacksburg three years ago, he felt conspicuous because of his race.
"Now, every day, I walk past hundreds of black faces," he says. "It's not enough, but it's better."
The American College Theatre Festival is in its 25th year. Tech has competed nine times in the regionals and twice has gone to the Kennedy Center showcase, in 1977 with "Waiting for Godot" and in 1985 with "How I Got That Story."
H.D. Flowers, "Fences" director, has competed 13 times in regionals with casts from five different schools, and this is his third trip to the showcase. He previously took productions from South Carolina State and North Carolina A&T State universities.
Because Flowers, 45, is an authority on black theater in America, with six textbooks to his credit and walls of honors in his Lane Hall office, there is a temptation to call "Fences" an all-black production.
But Flowers is quick to point to its racial diversity. True, he and the seven cast members - including guest artists Leak and Paulette Lunn, who plays Rose - are black. But no one else is. The company of about 35 mingles faculty, graduate students and undergrads from many backgrounds. And the play itself, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize, is a gripping depiction of the long-lasting effects of social injustice. The theme is universal, though based in black culture.
It is possible that exposure at the festival will encourage other aspiring theater professionals to come to Tech. For all its accomplishments, the theater department is still unknown to many prospects, who may, indeed, be blinded by the school's reputation for engineering and agriculture.
At least two of the graduate students involved behind-the-scenes with "Fences" admit that, until they were well into their undergraduate careers, they had no idea Tech had a theater arts program - or that it was so good.
Even now, minorities are a distinct minority in the department. Drapeau says the approximately 125 undergraduate theater arts majors and 28 graduate students include only three Asian-Americans and about a half-dozen black students.
Despite that, Flowers says, the department has managed to take a play by a black playwright with an all-black cast and an all-white technical crew and make it work, big-time.
It sets a valuable example. As he puts it, "if we can make the theater work, we can make life work."
by CNB