Graduating actors spread their wings

USQ graduating theatre troupe will present their finale performance this week (October 29).

For the past three years, they have appeared in and produced a number of shows at USQ and touring throughout SE Queensland as part of their Creative Arts degree.

Toowoomba audiences are sure to remember their faces from productions such as Twelfth Night, Houdini: The Man from Beyond and Totally Over You and will welcome the opportunity to farewell them at the University’s annual Theatre Showcase.

This year, offers seven live scenes including excerpts from contemporary scripts such as Neil la Bute’s Broadway hit, Reasons To Be Pretty, the final in his trilogy on the modern obsession with body image; Mat Morrillo’s sell-out play, Angry Young Women in Low-Rise Jeans With High Class Issues; and Polly Stenham’s first and world acclaimed play, That Face.

In a departure from recent years, the show will also feature 21 vignettes from film and television including The Butterfly Effect, How I Met Your Mother, Valentines Day and Degrassi High The Next Generation.

Director and USQ Lecturer in Acting, Scott Alderdice said these scenes have been produced in combined effort by students from theatre, creative media and Bachelor of Applied Media (Springfield)

'It is the first foray into cross-discipline practice enabled by the University’s Bachelor of Creative Arts for this very important project,' Mr Alderdice said.

'Showcase is the end of a three-year process; the training of each individual across those three years necessarily involves a complex and varied range of experiences, challenges, personal struggles and constant endeavour.

'A small group of staff are integrally involved in this process and to get each actor through three years training and have them ready to be presented as an industry entry level profession in a showcase production is very much a team effort.

'But whatever the project, it is always an immense privilege to work with young talented and committed artists and to be a part of their growth and development.'

The Showcase program runs the gamut from contemporary theatre, song, film, television and even includes some self-devised pieces – all chosen especially to provide each actor the opportunity to demonstrate their individual qualities.

'The scenes must be contemporary and able to be staged with the absolute minimum of support of sets, costumes or properties in order to focus absolutely on the actors.

'A showcase is all about the skills and qualities of the actor in a bare space.

Over the past decade in particular, USQ graduates have made a strong impact upon the performing arts industry in Queensland and high hopes are held for the current crop.

'Evidence of the past ten years of graduates suggests that these young actors, within the next two years, will have spread to all corners of the globe.

'For those who remain in Brisbane they will become a part of a robust and increasingly successful coterie of USQ graduates who dominate independent production in south east Queensland.

'Our graduates are also major contributors to state funded theatre in Brisbane as actors, production personnel and key creatives while others have gone south to carve out emerging careers in Sydney and Melbourne and still more have moved to London, Canada and across America working in film, television, theatre, cabaret and comedy gigs.

'USQ graduates continue to be, as they have been for decades, job ready for an international industry; ready to take and make their opportunities and become a part of that growing fraternity.'

Theatre Showcase will be presented at 7.30pm on Friday October 29 in the USQ Arts Theatre. Tickets are $25 adult, $20 concession, $15 student and are available from the USQ Artsworx Box Office on 07 4631 1111.

Showcase also tours to Brisbane with performances in the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts at 11am and 7.30pm on Tuesday October 26.