Production to include mix of Broadway hits
SMC Darren Giglio’s first trip out of the United States next month will be like living a dream.
It’s not just that he will finally get to see another part of the world or experience the culture of a different country, but he will get to do what he loves most on foreign soil.
Giglio is one of 18 Santa Monica College theater students who will travel to Shandong University of the Arts in China where they will perform a newly-written musical as part of the school’s 50th anniversary.
“To do this through a performance is like a dream,” Giglio, a junior at SMC, said.
“It’s a really great opportunity to not only perform there but to share a part of our culture with them.”
The university invited the college to help celebrate its half-century mark in April after a delegation of SMC officials, including President Dr. Chui Tsang and Academic Affairs Vice President Jeff Shimizu, visited several months before.
The school, which is located just south of Beijing, asked the college to send a contingent of art students for a performance, prompting those in the Theater Arts Department to begin brainstorming different types of shows. What they ended up with was a show in which they combine songs from more than 25 American musicals.
The 90-minute long show, titled “American Reflections: Broadway in Concert” pays tribute to classics such as “West Side Story” and “Sweet Charity.”
“We wanted to bring something that was uniquely American,” Nancy Grass Hemmert, the faculty leader for the trip, said. “Every culture has a unique addition to the arts and musical theater is a uniquely American tradition.”
The students auditioned and were selected for the show during the previous academic year. Those who were selected were asked to enroll in a special Chinese culture class in which they learn about the country before their visit.
The contingent also includes two journalism students with the student newspaper Corsair who will document the entire trip.
The university is paying the travel expenses for all the students while SMC will pick up the tab for the visiting faculty.
“We put together some of our very best people who are most appropriate for the show,” Perviz Sawoski, the chair of the Theater Arts Department, said. “It’s been a daunting yet exciting experience because we put together a huge amount of material.
Sawoski wrote the musical along with colleague Terrin Adair.
They selected famous Broadway shows that their audience in China might’ve seen, or at least know of.
“We picked stuff that was iconically American,” she said. “We’re hoping that because of the translation issue, they’re visual enough so people can understand them.”
Giglio said the show is enjoyable for the cast because it involves a mixture of ensemble, duets and solos.
“It’s kind of geared toward giving everyone an opportunity to shine and show off their talent,” he said. “We have a lot of people who are strong singers, strong dancers and a lot of people half and half or both.”
SMC officials say the trip plays into the college’s global citizenship initiative, which aims to educate students about the greater world around them.
Announced by Tsang last year, the initiative teaches students through classes, study abroad programs and from its own diverse campus, which includes more than 2,700 international students.
“It’s really about being a citizen of the world,” SMC spokesman Bruce Smith said. “It’s being aware that what you do here in the United States has an impact on pollution and global warming in other parts of the world.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 17, 2008. Read the original PDF.