USD Magazine, Spring 1999

acting and is an always-on-call mentor to students who need help, encouragement and pointers. "I try to teach them what acting is, the energy and commit– ment that is required," says Easton, who performs regularly at the Old Globe during the school year and around the country when the students are on break. "The transmission of the play depends entirely on the actors, not the director or the play– wright. I teach them that they have responsibilities to the play." Responsibility is one word with which the students become infinitely familiar. At the same time Easton coaches them through scenes and technique and the English professors grill them on history and literature, they take classes in voice, move– ment, singing and even yoga. After a full day of learning, they rehearse for upcoming productions - recent on-campus perfor– mances included Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale and Shaw's Getting Married, with David Mamet's The Water Engine com– ing up in late April. At home, they practice monologues and scenes for class, or memorize their understudy roles. There are no courses in the summer, but the students compensate by per– forming Shakespeare at the Globe's outdoor venue, the Lowell Davies Festival Theatre. A grueling schedule? Absolutely. One that any of the stu– dents would trade? Absolutely not. "Your life gets pushed to the side and you simply submerge yourself for two years," says second-year student Caitlin Muelder, who also is preparing for her May thesis requirement, a IS-minute original solo performance. "But the work hasn't taken away from the marvel I feel about acting. When. you ana– lyze the work of Shakespeare, you get a fundamental under– standing that other actors may not have. You also wonder if you can ever study it enough to unravel all the secrets it contains." FINDI G THE CREAM ... Each year, Seer and voice and speech professor Claudia Hill– Sparks, who both split their duties between USD and the Old Globe, scour the country in search of the seven most promising acolytes for the program. They see hundreds of new prospects and, more often than not, some familiar faces who have audi– tioned for the program before. According to Seer, the philoso– phy of the program brings them back. "Despite the busy schedule, we're not a boot camp for actors," he says. "We have a reputation as a welcoming, com– passionate and nurturing place." That much was clear at auditions held this spring at the Old Globe. Unlike the mythical casting scenario in which the director sits in a darkened theatre and a single spotlight illumi– nates a cowering hopeful, Seer and Hill-Sparks sat informally in

six days a week for 10 hours a day. And when the MFA degree was born in 1987, it was decided that USD's English depart– ment would house the degree, a distinct departure from other programs. "The English professors give these actors the skills they need from the time they are cast in a play until the time they begin rehearsal," says English department chair Fred Robinson, who leads the first-year students through a reading course in modern drama. "They learn to research the history and criti– cism of the plays so they know the implications of the text and the meanings the actors have to convey. That's background they wouldn't get elsewhere." They wouldn't get Richard Easton elsewhere, either. A stage veteran who is mentioned in the same respectful tones as John Geilgud and Alec Guiness, the acclaimed thespian teaches

a small rehearsal room. After the potential students each presented a classical and modern monologue, they sat with the two pros for an informal chat. Most express relief, with phrases like "that wasn't so bad" or "thanks for making it easy" peppering the conversations.

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