by Kendra Bridel
Staff Writer
For the second year in a row, select theater students from the University of La Verne have been invited to participate in the annual Split International Theatre Festival in Split, Croatia, this July.
“It is an international theater festival so there are productions coming from all over Europe. Our students come back feeling they have been treated and performed professionally,” said Dr. David Flaten, professor and chair of the Department of Theatre Arts.
This year’s students attending the festival are seniors Erik Johnson, Margo Fiorito, junior S. Baker Eatmon and sophomore Lisa Manley.
“I’m really excited. I think that it’s a wonderful honor because you have to be invited,” said Fiorito. “It’s an incredible experience for me.”
Fiorito hopes to get an understanding of the acting process. She also expressed her belief that in Europe there is a respect for artists not found in the United States.
The students were chosen this year by Georgij Paro, director of the Croatian National Theatre, and Steven Kent, director of workshop.
Paro directs the festival in Croatia and comes to ULV every year as he has for the last nine years, to help direct the University’s plays.
“I am more than excited, I am actually ecstatic,” said Eatmon. “It’s a different culture. Here in America it’s hard to get recognition as an artist. Over there [Europe] an actor is a respected position.”
Dr. Flaten said, “Georgij Paro is the head of the whole theater in Zagreb.”
“It is unfortunate that it does not get more recognition over here,” said Jane Dibbell, associate professor of theater arts.
“It will have a lot of press coverage in Croatia,” said Dr. Flaten.
It was Paro who initially envisioned students from the University of La Verne and actors from the Zagreb Theatre Academy in Croatia joining together to share personal acting talents with each other.
“We will be inviting two students from the Guildford School of Acting [in Great Britain] to join the four students from here and the six Croatian students,” said Dr. Flaten. “There are hopes that with funding, the program in Split will be expanded to be able to include more students next year.”
The festival is three to four weeks long. The first two-and-a-half weeks are spent learning techniques and practicing exercises in workshops. The students act in one performance that they learn in the workshops.
Dibbell said, “People are invited from all over Europe. They get to see a lot of other theater companies performing. It is an international cultural experience.”
Last year, Johnson and alumni Isela Griffith (’96), Eric Mulholland (’94) and Sean Dillon (’87) attended the festival and received national attention after being awarded one out of the four awards that were distributed.
The students need to be confirmed by the middle of May. They do not know what they will be performing until they get to Croatia.
Every year, in addition to any students, two professors attend the festival. Last year Paro and Dillon went to Croatia together as the professors.
“Steve Kent and I are going as the faculty teachers this year,” said Dr. Flaten. “Steve is a director who also works here as a guest artist and adjunct professor. He will be directing it and I will be doing the design and space.”
“The working title of the play to be performed in Split is ‘Borders.’ It will be invented with the actors and created from the workshop exercises,” said Dr. Flaten.
There are 60 shows presented throughout the festival.
Dibbell said of the opportunity, “The city of Split provides stipends, food, lodging and the opportunity to perform on a professional level. Students have to raise money for their ticket and the department tries to help with fundraising.”
Different than what many ULV students deal with on a regular basis, not all of the productions are performed on the center stage of a theater.
“Some of the performances take place in churches and town squares,” said Mark Pietrzak, technical director.
Dibbell said, “I think it is a terrific opportunity for our students to work in another country. It validates for them the work they are doing here and the training they are getting here from the University.”
“The students are working in a professional theater company in a culture that takes theater seriously. It is inconceivable in our culture,” said Dr. Flaten.
Pietrzak said, “There is a reciprocal sharing with the gifts that our students brought over and their experience from their academy. There are two different approaches of acting and performance.”
“The festival is a classical sense of celebrating theater,” said Dibbell.
Alumnus Scot McElvany, a past participant of the Split International Theatre Festival, went on to practice theater with people who were in the war. He works in countries such as Bosnia, Romania and Hungary.
“It is a way of helping students become more cosmopolitan and a part of a bigger world,” said Dibbell.
