The Department of Theater Arts of Long Beach City College launched a premiere of the play called “Out Brief Candle” on December 4.
The play was directed by actor, fight director, former Viking and current theater professor, Collin Bressie, and was presented on the Long Beach City College Performing Arts’ YouTube channel.
“Out Brief Candle” was the first recorded play that Long Beach City College’s students and staff presented in an online format.
The play consisted of a compilation of Shakespeare’s lines from such plays as “King Lear,” “Richard III,” “Macbeth,” “The Merchant of Venice” and more.
The purpose of using these plays was to connect them with political and human issues that occurred during 2020.
Bressie said he chose Shakespeare because, “Shakespeare is something I’ve had a deep connection with forever since I’ve been doing theater, and I thought it would be a great opportunity for our students to work with Shakespeare and become familiar with the language.”
Ellen Arroyo is a second year theater student at Long Beach City College. She started as a nursing major, but when she took a theater class she discovered her passion for acting.
Ellen played several roles in “Out Brief Candle,” and she mentioned that the longest role she had in this play was Lady Anne in the play of “Richard III.”
“I did about three scenes and then we all collaborated on the first intro line,” she said.
When producing “Out Brief Candle” in a new recorded format, the students and producers ran into several challenges.
“Unlike other plays that we do, we get a script, we know our role, and we memorize lines. But for this one, we didn’t have a script. That was what was different about this play. We (the cast) came up with a script together,” Arroyo said.
Arroyo said, “We had rehearsals over Zoom and we recorded ourselves while Collin watched us so that he can direct and tell us if he wanted something different, possibly another angle or where to emphasize. It was different as well, something we all had to get used to.”
She added the cast members had to clear out a space in their rooms in order to record themselves and act.
Bressie commented that the “Out Brief Candle” team had to complete the script in five days.
He said, “That’s us doing a lot of research, students created their own research components from pools from social media, pools from articles.”
Theater classes were severely affected by COVID-19. It has been challenging and complicated for students to build relationships with other students and professors since everything has been through Zoom, including rehearsals and other theater activities.
Bressie said, “It’s challenging. How do we put together and create a sense of partnership through this medium? It’s been quite a challenge. I think not being able to be in a space, share a physical space with those that you are working within theater is very foreign to all of us.”
“It’s been heartbreaking not being in the theater but also it has been inspirational,” Bressie said.
Arroyo mentioned that even though these are not the best circumstances, the entire team worked hard and got the best of it.
Usually the department of theater performs five plays during a year, two in spring, one over summer and the last two in the fall.
“Out Brief Candle” is the fourth play of 2020 and the Department of Theater Arts will premiere another play in the same format before the holidays.
The name of the fifth play of the year is called “The War of the Worlds” by H.G. Wells. However, there is no specific date the play will be premiered yet.
For more information about future theater plays and events of the Department of Theater Arts visit the link: https://www.lbcc.edu/department-performing-arts