Students persevere, present production on gun violence
When backstage drama threatened to derail Seminole State College’s final theater production of the year, students took matters into their own hands. And with the Parkland mass shooting fresh in their minds, they turned to a subject they felt passionately about: gun violence.
“Parkland resonates with us because we’re students and we’re in Florida,” said co-director Sierra Lugo, a freshman from Oviedo. “Because of how close it hit, we wanted to deliver a message of our own.”
The students’ effort, with only a minimal level of advising by faculty, will take the stage tonight when they open “First Person Shooter.” The play will be paired with spoken-word performances on the topic.
“First Person Shooter” replaces two previously announced titles, both of which the college abruptly called off — leaving a spring production in doubt. The cancellations raised eyebrows when Bobbie Bell, scheduled to direct an all-female version of Shakespeare’s
“Measure for Measure,” used social media to express displeasure that his show wouldn’t happen.
“It was an awkward situation,” said Richard Harmon, a theater professor who is advising the students producing “First Person Shooter.” “But I’m so happy to see the students engaged with this show and the idea that they’re not just doing theater but theater with a purpose.”
“First Person Shooter,” by Texas writer Don Zolidis, examines the aftermath of a school shooting, in some ways similar to the Valentine’s Day tragedy at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, which left 17 people dead. Focusing on the killer’s best friend, the 2000 play considers emotional abuse, bullying and the price of feeling like an outcast.
“We wanted to go with a nonpartisan stance and go with a social message to show that compassion is needed, first of all, for your fellow man,” Lugo said.
Each of the three performances will be followed by a discussion session with the audience.
With “First Person Shooter,” Seminole State continues a trend of local college theater programs tackling material echoing today’s headlines. Valencia College is presenting “Transition,” about transgender experiences, Rollins College in Winter Park staged “The Lockerbie Project,” about finding closure after a terrorist attack, and the University of Central Florida produced “Boy Gets Girl,” about gender relations and expectations.
At Seminole, the administration got behind the students’ efforts.
“I think [gun violence] is something that’s weighing heavily on students’ minds right now,” said Stephen Summers, associate vice president of the School of Arts and Sciences, which oversees the theater program. “It touched a chord with them.”
In addition, administrators didn’t want to leave them without a play after previously announcing two different shows for the slot.
“We wanted to have an opportunity for them to work in the theater,” Summers said.
About 20 students have spent five weeks on the production, though not all of them come from among the school’s roughly 20 theater majors.
“We wanted to open it up to the school for anyone who wanted to be part of this,” said Celeste Portz, a freshman from Casselberry who is the production’s stage manager.
The college had first shelved the drama “Circle Mirror Transformation,” about participants in an acting class, in favor of Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure,” a look at morality, justice and mercy. Bell’s idea for the latter show was to focus on female empowerment by using an allwoman cast.
But bad blood between Bell and his colleagues sank that project.
“The show I was supposed to do was sabotaged and canceled,” said Bell, an award-winning playwright who has also acted and directed to critical acclaim at Orlando’s Mad Cow Theatre.
The last show he directed for Seminole State, 2017’s “Marcus, or the Secret of Sweet,” resulted in the Sentinel honoring him as drama director of the year. But as things unraveled this spring, Bell took to social media to express his displeasure with the school — in recent days posting about his “shabby treatment.” He is retiring in July.
Summers said “Measure for Measure” was canceled by mutual agreement between school administrators and United Faculty of Florida — Seminole, the union that represents Bell.
Students say they took the confusion in stride — and have learned about leadership and collaboration in the process.
“I definitely have learned a lot,” Lugo said. “It was actually exciting that, in the end, we were given the opportunity to take the reins.”