By Sergio Berrueta
The Theatre Department has been raising funds to help with future projects.
A new club called Performance East has formed on campus to draw attention to the Theatre Department.
The club is led by Priscilla Balma with memebers Marlene Grajeda, Andrew Maldonando and Azzul Cerda and advisers Casey Owen Gale and Natalie Wong. The club was barely chartered two weeks ago.
“We are raising funds for the actors to go to the Kennedy Center American Theatre Festival,” Maldonando said. “It’s a competition for all aspects of theaters from backstage to theater managing. We compete against colleges within our region and we also qualify for scholarships and professions in theater.”
“We started the club to get our students going,” Grajeda said. “We’re also trying to get more people involved in the Theatre Department including new students into the department, seeing backstage and get to know everybody since we are working together.”
Another section of the Theatre Department fundraising is the costume shop lead by Professor Jessica Hansen.
The costume shop is working to have financial backing for future productions and much needed materials.
The shop ran a two-day one dollar costume sale this past Thursday and Monday in time for Halloween.
“We do the sale for a few reasons. One is that we need costume storage for the costume we build and we have nowhere to put them,” Hansen said.
“We also do it just to let people know about the costume program. We are a tiny program within the theater and people don’t know we are here.”
The sale lets people know about the department and to get other students who are interested in joining a quick look at what goes on.
“Even if we find that one student that walks by to go “Oh my god, I always wanted to do that. I didn’t know you guys exist,” we found that one person and it was totally worth it,” Hansen said.