CAMERON WEBSTER
campus editor
cameron.webster@my.tccd.edu
The theater program at SE is putting on its final play of the semester.
It will feature a series of comic one-act plays by David Ives titled “All in the Timing.”
It will be performed at the Black Box Theater, and opening night is April 20 from 7:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., and the second show is April 21 at the same time. The performance April 22 is from 1:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., with the final show at 7:30 p.m. that same day.
Admission is pay-what-you-can, with all money earned going toward benefitting drama scholarships. The box office will open one hour before each performance, and tickets are walk-ups only.
The performance will include “Sure Thing,” “The Philadelphia,” “Words, Words, Words” and “Variations of the Death of Trotsky.”
According to SE drama adjunct and director Brad McEntire, “All in the Timing” has a central theme surrounding the human experience.
“We originally planned to do ‘All In The Timing’ back in the spring of 2020 and actually had it cast with one rehearsal under our belts before spring break, but then the pandemic hit, and the project had to be shelved,” McEntire said. “With flexible casting for four short plays packaged together on one bill, it seemed like a good project to do for this spring semester. It is kind of a nice, humorous production to round out the school semester.”
The four plays have stories that range from a couple who fall in love to a universe that operates on Murphy’s Law. The stories also feature the many deaths of a murdered Marxist revolutionary and chimpanzees attempting to emulate Shakespeare.
One of the stars of the show is SE student Haleigh Ferguson. Ferguson has been cast as the character Betty in “Sure Thing,” as well as the character Mrs. Trotsky in “Variations of the Death of Trotsky.”
Ferguson thinks her performance as Betty in particular will be extremely relatable and will portray feelings everyone can understand.
“For ‘Sure Thing,’ it’s a couple that’s on a date, but it’s all of the ways a date can go wrong, and it’s really funny,” she said. ”It is super quick humor, so it’s a little bit hard in that way. It was really challenging in an acting sense, but it’s super-duper fun, and I think everybody kind of understands that humor and has been there with all the awkwardness of a date.”
She added that her second character Mrs. Trotsky is essentially the support system for her husband as he slowly dies in different ways over 24 hours.
SE student Marc Aldridge will be portraying the character of Mr. Trotsky.
“It’s basically the true story of a semi-famous Russian communist who was exiled by Stalin to Mexico,” Aldridge said. “It’s kind of surrealist in a way, where it happens immediately the day after he had already been hit by the ax.”
Aldridge will also be portraying Milton, one of the chimpanzees in “Words, Words, Words.”
Because this production was delayed a full two years, the theater program is exceptionally excited to finally have this performance be seen by the public.
McEntire hopes people who come to see it will, first and foremost, experience a laugh-out-loud moment but also leave the theater with something to think about.
“It has been a long time coming for this project, specifically here at TCC SE,” he said. ”To the audiences, I say, enjoy.”
