by Nick Schober
Staff Writer
Since arriving at the University of La Verne Theater Arts Department, April Shenkman has had the opportunity to truly experience theater nationally, as well as internationally, in a way that most theater students can only dream of.
Within her first three years at La Verne, Shenkman had already performed in England and Bosnia as well as starring in a host of La Verne productions on campus.
Already on her way to a different school, Shenkman had no idea she would be attending ULV, making her final decision the day before classes actually started for the fall semester of 1998.
“I really did not even know I was coming to La Verne,” Shenkman said. She received a call from former theater faculty member Jane Dibbell, who has recently become stricken with cancer and is unable to be on campus full time. Dibbell asked Shenkman if she had made her decision yet and Shenkman took it as a sign.
“La Verne chose me really,” Shenkman said.
Although ULV theater offers numerous different positions in theater production, Shenkman came for the stage.
“Acting is really my thing,” Shenkman said.
She has taken full advantage of all the outlets that the university offers: traveling to Bosnia after her freshman year, getting her first taste of international theater and a sense of theater in poorer countries where it is a matter of love of art rather than anything else.
Shenkman has also taken advantage of the opportunity that ULV theater students are offered: students have a chance to spend their junior year at the Guildford Acting Conservatory in Cambridge, England. Shenkman was one of only three Americans excepted to Guildford on an audition basis.
Shenkman returned to La Verne very eager to implement her new-found tools of the trade, gathered from Guildford. Her chance came this past fall when she played three separate parts in the La Verne production of “Cloud 9.”
“It was an exciting project because I got to apply all the things I learned.”
One of Shenkman’s other favorite parts was when she played Claren, in the La Verne, production of “Life is a Dream” in fall 1999.
“I enjoyed the challenge, it was pretty tough to play a male jester,” she said.
Aside from acting, Shenkman said she has obtained an extreme wealth of knowledge from the very expert cast of faculty. Shenkman said all basses are very well covered with the instructors ULV has to offer. David Flaten, theater department chair, offers the historical background, while Steve Kent, visiting professor of theater, contributes a self-help approach toward acting.
“He gives you the questions to find your own answers. He makes it so you can find your own tools,” Shenkman said.
Shenkman also is still under the wing of her very capable mentor Jane Dibbell.
“She was my first real acting instructor,” she said.
Even though Dibbell cannot be on campus due to her illness, Shenkman still visits her at her home in Claremont as Dibbell instructs Shenkman on her senior project.
After ULV, Shenkman hopes to continue her acting and hopefully join a traveling theater company.
“I would like to cultivate my art,” Shenkman said. “It is such a vast field.”
Shenkman thinks she will definitely walk away from ULV with the necessary ammunition. “This department is very encouraging if you want to do something, you have to take the necessary responsibility. I have learned a great deal about theater from La Verne; it has changed my life.”
