Evelyn Diaz Cruz
College of Arts and Sciences
This initiative is the continuation of a collaboration started by Prof. Evelyn Díaz Cruz in Spring 2018 and continued in Spring 2019 with Prof. Robin Sanford Roberts and intern Soroya Rowley. Prof. Cruz's THEA 475 Theatre and Community is a non-traditional approach to creating theatre in cooperation with a community partner, which, in this case, works with domestic violence survivors, immigrants, and/or youths. Students in this course and community partners, the clients from Access, are supported in experimenting within specific guidelines towards a collaborative theatre production. This includes the basics of writing for the stage, directing, acting, designing and ultimately staging. Theatre, perhaps more than any other field of study, is influenced and created by the people who inspire it. To that end, this class is a celebration of being human and explores how issues of race, privilege, gender, sexual orientation, and able-bodied perceptions inform our point of view. This class seeks to tell honest stories that advocate for a more just society. Story telling, improvisation and theatre games to spark creativity. Students and community partners will be given guidance towards creating a final evening of one-acts hosted at the University of San Diego’s Vassiliades’ Black Box Theatre.