The members of the BFA acting Class of 2015 are taking a big step toward making their dreams a reality with their Senior Showcase, a performance event that compiles the students’ past four years of hard work and acting education.
Each actor will contribute to a total of 11 monologues and six scenes. The showcase will feature everything from Shakespeare to “500 Days of Summer” and will explore a variety of moods from humorous to dramatic.
Benedetto Robinson, a senior in the BFA acting program, said the showcase is an overall presentation of the seniors’ skills.
“The actors involved have been training intensely for the past years in the dually simple and difficult art of telling the truth,” Robinson said. “What we aim to bring is snippets of the human experience.”
BFA acting senior Anna Weis said that this is only the second year that the Elon BFA Acting program has put on the showcase, and the change has benefited both the program and the actors.
“In previous years, senior classes have put on plays or one acts,” Weis said. “Last year we changed the format, and I believe it was for the better. Instead of worry about building a set [and] finding costumes, we can focus almost solely on the acting.”
Weis added that the showcase highlights all of the actors, which is not always possible when performing a play with a limited number of lead characters.
According to Weis, the showcase material was based on each actor’s “type” that he or she hopes to portray in future acting roles.
“We spent the summer looking through lots of plays and scripts for TV shows and movies,” Weis said. “The search was a lot harder than any of us thought, but we ended up with material that we enjoy. I am doing a monologue from the TV show Louie. I loved it because it gave an honest female perspective on dating, which is actually extremely hard to find. It was something where as I was reading it I thought, ‘This is something I can totally picture myself saying!’”
This fall’s showcase will act as a preview of their program for the public, friends, family and local artistic directors. The students will use the funds they raise through this weekend of performances in order to show the same showcase in private performances to other industry professionals and casting directors in the coming months.
“We won't be bringing in casting directors until spring semester,” Weis said, “but these performances will be a good way to practice and discover how an audience perceives what we have been working on. Having an audience always greatly affects how a scene or monologue is performed.”
Robinson said the seniors will also raise funds to bring in casting directors during the spring semester through their Indiegogo campaign that was launched Oct. 20.
The seniors hope to bring four agents, each costing roughly $2,000.
“We will be flying them in from New York, Los Angeles and other cities around the nation to see our work and meet with us about our futures as performance artists,” Robinson said. “It will include airfare, hotel accommodations, food and, of course, their time.”
Senior BFA acting major Jenna Hokanson said she’s excited for the debut of the showcase because it is the seniors’ chance to present what they have been working on all four years at Elon.
“I'm really excited about the showcase,” Hokanson said. “It’s all so surreal simply because I’ve watched the classes before me get to this point and I can’t believe all of us are already here. I’m incredibly proud of our class and the progress we’ve made with not only this showcase, but throughout our time at Elon. It should be a fun opportunity to spend time with each other doing what we love.”
There will be three performances of the showcase on 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 14 and 5:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 15 in the Black Box Theatre in the Center for the Performing Arts.
To learn more about BFA Acting Class of 2015’s Indiegogo campaign, please visit their fundraising page.