USC Lab Theatre and Center for Performance Experiment

The University of South Carolina Department of Theatre and Dance’s Center for Performance Experiment (CPE) and Lab Theatre allow students to show off and hone their talents on stage and backstage.

They feature simpler staging and settings than the department’s Main Stage Productions.

Even better, tickets to see several months’ work come to fruition on stage are only $5.

The directors of two upcoming shows used personal experiences to bring authenticity to their productions.

‘Mad Forest’

An unexpected contact from years ago came in handy for Eric Bultman.

Bultman said CPE is focusing on plays written by women, including Caryl Churchill’s “Mad Forest.” The play features two families living through the 1989 Romanian Revolution, which ultimately toppled the country’s communist regime. The families are from different economic classes, though the daughter of one family falls in the love with the son of the other during the time of unrest.

Churchill based her script on interviews with people who witnessed the revolt just months after it happened, the director said.

“They totally immersed themselves in the culture and learned as much about it as they could,” Bultman said.

The cast of “Mad Forest” mirrored that by using personal resources.

Bultman is the executive director of the Sumter Little Theatre and is on the faculty at USC-Sumter. He said he decided to contact Christian Badiu, a Romanian who used to work with him at the Little Theatre.

Badiu now lives in Canada, so the cast held a FaceTime video chat with him for about an hour, asking him to recall memories of the revolution when he was 14.

“He just shared some of his experiences,” he said. “There’s a lot of Romanian language (in the play). He was able to help us with pronunciation of words.”

The production features student-actors Nicole Dietze, Josh Jeffers, Rachel Kuhnle, Candace Thomas, Megh Ahire, Jack Borden, Sam Edelson, Ely Graham, Sofia Pavone, John Romanski and Haley Sprankle. Costume design is by alumna Vera Katherine Dubose.

Bultman said USC theater professor Nic Ularu is a native of Romania and helped the cast with everything from pronunciation of words to cultural insight.

“(We) had to figure out how to speak the language and not completely learn it all, but learn what the plays calls for,” he said. “It’s been really fun. It’s been interesting, a learning experience for everyone.”

‘Still Life’

Leroy Kelly was in class one day when he stumbled across a monologue from a play that caught his attention.

Kelly, a senior studying theater at USC, read the powerful yet disturbing piece from the character Mark in Emily Mann’s “Still Life.” Mark, a Vietnam War veteran, struggles with life at home after the war. Kelly himself served eight years in the U.S. Marine Corps, making four deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Before he went to Vietnam, he had morals,” Kelly said. “He was a good guy. But whenever he got dressed to go to Vietnam, he started experiencing the animal quality the war brought to the troops. … He comes back to America, and he’s not able to adjust.”

The trauma Mark faces in battle leads him to make poor decisions, including drug trafficking, which lands him in jail and makes it difficult to hold a steady job. He also has an affair and abuses his wife.

Kelly said he wanted to bring “Still Life” to USC’s Lab Theatre and direct it because of its tough yet pervasive themes, including how loved ones of soldiers are affected.

“It really affects those close to (soldiers and veterans), as well,” he said. “That’s one of the thing you get out of this play.”

Kelly said he knew two fellow Marines who committed suicide and another who died after crashing a motorcycle while intoxicated. He said suicide is too common among veterans, and many have yet to recover from their experiences in wars from years past and present.

The production features undergraduate actors Cedrick Cooper, Kerri Simmons and Beth Paxton and set designer Curtis Smoak. “Still Life” is Cooper’s theater debut, though he did spend four years as a defensive end for the Gamecock football team.

Kelly said he used his military experiences to help Cooper transform into his character, from teaching him terminology to even how soldiers walk.

Kelly said the play shines light on issues that need to be fixed.

“We still don’t have an (effective) program in order to really help veterans after a postwar experience,” he said. “How do we help eliminate the suicides, the inability to find work, the domestic violence, drug addiction? How do we fix all that so it doesn’t happen?”