Press release

UC Davis Presents Solo Explorations by Graduating MFA Actors

UC Davis Department of Theatre & Dance proudly presents Solo Explorations — the annual performance by graduating MFA acting candidates. This year’s production features four new interdisciplinary works by Amy Louise Cole, Brett Duggan, James Marchbanks and Anne Reeder.

Solo Explorations runs Friday and Saturday, April 2 and 3, at 8:00 pm in the Arena Theatre, Wright Hall.  This production is free of charge.

Solo Explorations are the performance part of the MFA actors’ thesis project, reflecting the culmination of their UC Davis graduate studies. All four students are mid-career professionals, who have spent the last two years re-engaging with their craft and evolving their own personal aesthetics.

“Each of the pieces this year shows the diversity of research challenges the individuals have posed themselves,” explains Bella Merlin, Professor of Acting. “When are we acting and when are we performing? What is the relationship between chaos and control in the actor? How can an actor change from one character to another in the blink of an eye? How can 20th century German Expressionism be applied to 21st century American performance-making? These four pieces explore these questions through the use of the solo actor’s body and voice.”

Amy Louise Cole’s Music, While Drowning is an exploration of the German Expressionist performance aesthetic as translated on the contemporary actor’s body. The German Expressionist movement occurred between 1916 and 1921, respectively. Its aesthetic is often characterized by the abstract shapes and images created with the bodies of its actors and their expansive and rhapsodic conveyance of text. Spiritual awakening was an important theme of German Expressionist drama as it focused on the concept of “The New Man” who rejected the repression of years past and was at one with the cosmos. Cole will be combining contemporary actor training and practice with Expressionist style and motifs in a fully devised solo performance.

Brett Duggan’s Black Out: A Dark Comedy is a theatrical character study of the alcoholic personality. Black Out is the story of a troubled librettist searching for answers. The piece plays with transformation of characters through the embodiment of famous, infamous and anonymous dipsomaniacs.

James Marchbanks presents The Art of Everyday Life. His performance aims to bridge the gap between the performer and the spectator.

Anne Reeder’s  Cigarettes and Milk is an exploration of control and chaos. Control: to exercise restraint or direction over; dominate; command. Chaos: a state of utter confusion or disorder; a total lack of organization or order.  The character at the center of the investigation of Anne’s fully devised solo performance is torn between her need for control and her desire for chaos. We meet her at the culmination of the struggle between the two. In this Physical Theater piece, Anne uses Laban movement technique to investigate and create the character through the actor’s body.

Biographies

Amy Louise Cole has been acting, directing, producing and teaching professionally in the Bay Area for over a decade. Amy co-founded El Gato Theatre in San Francisco and has worked with TheatreWorks, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, and 42nd Street Moon among other companies. Roles while pursuing her MFA in Acting at UC Davis include Goram in #5 Angry Red Drum, written and directed by Philip Kan Gotanda, and Polina in The Seagull directed by Katya Kamotskaia. Amy will be moving to Berlin, Germany this August to continue her investigation of German theatre and devised performance. Amy is a member of Actor’s Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild, and Theatre Bay Area.

Brett Duggan is an actor, comedian, musician, and director who has lived and created works in Boston, New York, San Francisco and Davis. Brett received his BFA from Emerson College and is now a UC Davis MFA Acting candidate. He just completed his fifth show at UC Davis as Shamrayev in The Seagull.  Previously he played Frank in Private Eyes, Judd in Oklahoma!, Leontes in The Winter’s Tale and Mr. Drumble in Nest.

James Marchbanks is a second year MFA actor at UC Davis where he has recently performed in Jointedness/Things of the World, tribes/the unified field and Elephant’s Graveyard. Other stage credits include Winston in The Island, directed by Peter Lichtenfels, and Lt. Shrank in Westside Story at Sonoma State.

Anne Reeder is a second year MFA Acting candidate at UC Davis. She received her BA in Theater Studies with concentrations in Acting and Dance from Emerson College in 2004. After graduating she moved to Los Angeles where she pursued a professional career in acting and production.  Some credits include: Brotherhood (Showtime), The Bold and the Beautiful (CBS), and The Art of Being Straight  (Great Graffiti Films).  While at UC Davis Anne has performed in Granada-Artist-in-Residence John Jasperse’s work Beyond Belief, in Private Eyes directed by MFA candidate Candice Andrews, in Sideshow Physical Theater Company’s Elephant’s Graveyard written and directed by Jade Rosina McCutcheon, and most recently as Masha in The Seagull, directed by Granada-Artist-in- Residence Katya Kamotskaia. 

What: Solo Explorations, Acting Thesis Presentations by UC Davis MFA Candidates

Where: Arena Theatre, Wright Hall, UC Davis

When: Fri 4/2 – Sat 4/3, 8pm

Tickets: Free of Charge

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