By Eva Trieger
OCEANSIDE, California — College students and their parents, often look forward to the start of the new school year, the moving of grown children out of the house and into their dorms, the structure of a day with classes and homework, no logy teenager sleeping until noon, nor having that interminably empty stomach to feed at the family table.
While those reasons may all be valid, I am eagerly anticipating the start of fall semester for the chance to buy a season subscription to one of my newest finds: MiraCosta College Theater Department.
The Oceanside campus has an outstanding Theater department that presents four shows annually. These shows are carefully chosen, with an eye toward balancing drama, comedy, standards and thought provoking premieres. I’ve been attending these performances over the past few years and each time, I am incredulous at what the small full-time faculty has birthed.
This season’s offerings include Romeo and Juliet, These Shining Lives, Oklahoma!, and Almost, Maine. Sadly, due to overwhelm, this columnist could not review the first two in a timely manner, so you’ll have to take my word for it. There is still time to mark your calendars and get tickets to Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma, in addition to a play that is sure to pluck at your heart strings, John Cariani’s Almost, Maine.
Perhaps because it is a college, I often feel that I garner new knowledge from each performance. Thanks to MiraCosta I learned about the emotionally wrought Cuban workers in Tampa, Florida, from Anna in the Tropics, and how literature altered their lives forever when they were exposed to Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. I became aware, for the first time, of radium causing cancer in hundreds of young women in These Shining Lives. In the 1920s, hundreds of young female factory workers in Orange, New Jersey, contracted radiation poisoning from painting glow-in-the-dark watch faces. Even from shows that are a tad less weighty, I always glean greater information about the human condition and its antithesis of inhumanity from the brilliant treatment each play is given.
To paraphrase The Wizard of Oz, one of the key men behind the curtain is Eric Bishop, faculty member and soon-to-be department chair and professor of the school’s Theater department. Formerly an actor, Bishop now directs shows. In a recent phone interview the MiraCosta faculty member, told me that he realized “education was where I wanted to put my life.” For the past 17 years, this lucky community college has benefited from Bishop’s expertise and connections.
Other significant faculty collaborators in the MiraCosta Theater family include acting faculty, Tracy Williams and design faculty, Andrew Layton. These mentors and talented individuals have been grooming MiraCosta’s students to go out into the world and hone their craft.
To this end, Bishop created an alumni board which showcases where students have gone and what they’ve achieved as a direct result of their fine training in Bishop’s program. This wall serves as great inspiration to current students who read the accolades, see clippings and think, “That could be me someday!” Bishop proudly told me that one of the students who went on to Yale won an Emmy award and another student has been nominated for three Emmys. No mean feat!
The Department’s summer program, the Actor’s Academy, is based on a conservatory model, and often collaborates with the Music and Dance departments. The director told me that there is a desire to create a year round conservatory styled program before 2020. Bishop shared that a new arts corridor is in the works for the campus, and he stated that this will add to the “esprit du corps” not always found on a campus, and especially within a community college setting. There will be classrooms and a black box venue for smaller shows, all of it dedicated to the performing arts.
Like a proud papa, Bishop told me about MCC’s involvement in the Kennedy Center/American College Theater festival as well as the Irene Ryan Acting competition. MiraCosta students consistently take awards, not only for their skill as thespians, but for their professionalism, conduct, camaraderie and overall decorum.
The competitions consider acting, stage management, costume design, set design and dramaturgy. Out of 300 competitors, MiraCosta held two of the top finalists’ spots. One student won the Irene Ryan Scholarship for acting. For the past 40 years this gift has provided eight regional scholarships, annually, to somewhere between 250-300 students in the Western region, which includes California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Hawaii and Guam. Eric Bishop is no stranger to the competition. In 1992, he was a partner to an Irene Ryan winner and had the opportunity to act on the coveted Kennedy Center stage.
While the stage has seen great talent, three of the students have been received laudable awards. In 2007 Sarah Kelley won the National Stage Management award. In 2009 Anyelid Meneses won the regional competition and was then invited to perform at the Kennedy Center, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. 2013 was a great year for Hannah Doher as she scooped up the prize for Costume Design.
While the Theater department receives funding from the college, donations are always put to good use. The Spotlight Circle merit awards enable students to focus on their craft, to invest in their studies. Instead of working two jobs, a donation may make it possible for a student to funnel his/her energies directly into the program, further expanding his/her grasp of the complexities of the field. The MiraCosta Spotlight Circle, an auxiliary body of the department, allows patrons to support the students and the performing arts.
Donations are also used to purchase materials that are not covered by the budget. Recently, one show required character masks, and thanks to donor dollars, these were procured.
Freshman are encouraged to come and audition and are often cast in shows.
Bishop knows that the goal in a community college is to develop the students as quickly as possible so that they can move forward in their quest for a career in the theater. Graduated students return to work as costume designers, or as set creators after earning their AA or an AA Transfer. The transfer allows them to segue directly into a four year school and upper division classes.
I was curious to know Bishop’s favorite show that he has directed. He wasn’t able to give me one, because he has “fallen in love with all the plays I’ve directed,” but he provided me with the top three: Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal, Caucasian Chalk Circle, and The Normal Heart. Each of these appealed to Bishop as he likes a broad canvas with which he can “paint original concepts.” As we spoke, and I mentioned others I’ve loved at his theater, it was obvious, that each show really is his favorite!
What was the biggest surprise for Eric Bishop after taking the helm? Bishop kvelled when he told me that seeing his students competing against university trained students, and winning competitions consistently, filled him with pride. The director described how the Theater students represent MiraCosta with such poise, and he laughingly told me, “In the words of Anchorman Ron Burgundy, we tell them to “Keep it classy, San Diego.” And that they do!
Oklahoma! runs March 9-19 and Almost, Maine runs April 27-May 7. Tickets are available by calling (760) 795-6815, or on line at http://www.miracosta.edu/instruction/dramaticarts/index.html
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Trieger is a freelance writer who specializes in coverage of the arts. She may be contacted via eva.trieger@sdjewishworld.com