After a semester long study of writing, improvising and devising in ensemble generated theatre, the department of theatre and dance is presenting a performance from the devising theatre class. The Devised Theatre Showcase, directed by Visiting Assistant Professor in Theatre and Dance Cory Hinkle, is a collaboration of ideas and various concepts among the students of the class.

The show, Sacramento (certain rules apply), revolves around the idea of magnetism—attraction and repulsion—and the exploration of relationships between individuals. The theme of the show focuses on the interconnectedness of people and how one defines oneself in retrospect to that other person.

“We are all attracted and repelled by each other,” Hinkle said. “Whether it is for better or for worse, we’re there together. In the show, all the characters are in Sacramento; they don’t know each other, but they are all interconnected by one person—who vanishes from their lives, and at this point, this one character doesn’t want to be there, and yet the rest demand to be with him.” Sacramento (certain rules apply) poses the question of what it is that brings people together, what pulls them apart and if applicable, what brings those people back together in the end, and how emotions evolve throughout this whole process. Both people and places have a certain magnitude of attraction and repulsion, but the show questions how these elements bring about change once these elements are removed.

“The show is all about pondering how we’re connected to people, even the bad people in our lives,” Sophomore Theatre Major Connie Boatwright said. “It asks how we associate with different types of attraction and magnetism. Our characters in the show are very different from one another and they all have a defined personality. What is it, though, that connects us and what do we all have in common?”

The show, comprised of the efforts of all seven members of the class, has been in the works since the beginning of the semester. After weeks of experimentation and exploration of possible ideas, the final product had only started to come to fruition within the last month.

“The great thing about this show was that it was organic,” Hinkle said. “I didn’t direct it like a conventional director. We had open discussions about how it should go. Sometimes things influenced us and inspired us, but there were also days where we met a dead end. After a while, it became clear that our conversation revolved around the same idea of magnetism and it just naturally went that way.”

The class had experimented with various imagery and lighting, coming up with multiple ways to try to narrate their story. “We all had different ideas from each other,” Sophomore Theatre Major Rob Ward said. “We had to negotiate to fit the theme together. Theatre as a collaborative effort is a hard concept to grab; one person generally writes a play and we put it on, but having a class working on it together makes it unique, and because of that, we could open our eyes to more artistic ideas.”

The conception of the show comes from a variety of research and observations from a multitude of different theatre companies and study on short plays as well as class improv. After having the interesting notion of centralizing the show around magnetism, the class members each individually wrote pieces of fragments of the show, ultimately having the show consist of a collaborative effort on all fronts.

Tickets are currently on sale now, with performances on Dec. 9 and 10 starting at 8:00 p.m. and a final performance on Dec. 11 starting at 2:00 p.m.