From Scotland to BR: LSU Theatre restaging Love

• By ROBIN MILLER
• arts writer
• Published: Sep 28, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

This is the perfect time for reflection, standing on a darkened stage and thinking back to the other darkened stage inside an old building standing in an old world.

St. Augustine’s Sanctuary, it was called. It once was a church but now is home to four theater venues.

This was the small stage where Caitlyn Sabrio would realize that lots of new could be discovered among the old, that acting options aren’t limited to shine and sparkle.

That an actor can look past New York and Los Angeles and find success.

Sure, that stage in Edinburgh, Scotland, didn’t compare to, say, that of the Schubert Theatre in New York, and audiences didn’t number in the hundreds each day to watch LSU Theatre’s production of Love Still Unrequited.

But that was OK, because the show’s last Edinburgh Fringe Festival performance would nearly sell out, and Sabrio’s world suddenly would expand beyond that small stage. Everyone’s would.

Which was Nick Erickson’s hope while documenting his students’ seven-hour work on the programs and later photographing them hawking those same programs in the streets. Proof is in the photos on his laptop.

They did cartwheels, back bends, maybe even a cheerleader jump here and there — anything to attract prospective audience members’ attention. And in doing so, they grabbed the world’s attention.

“Because this was an international audience,” Erickson said. “And through all of this, the students’ perspectives changed. That’s what I wanted most for them — I wanted them to see that there are more opportunities in theater than they may realize.”

And now Erickson sits in Hatcher Hall Theatre’s empty audience watching as Sabrio warms up the cast for yet a third production of Love Still Unrequited. Yes, third. Not only that, but the third production in less than a year, for the play made its world premiere on this very stage in April before traveling to the Fringe Festival in August.

The play opens Tuesday, Sept. 30, and continues to Sunday, Oct. 5.

“There was a slot open in the studio season, and I was asked to direct it again,” Erickson said. “It will give audiences an idea of what we did in Edinburgh, and how the play’s changed since the premiere.”

And changes have occurred in more than just the story. Fall semester has generated new schedules and acting opportunities, meaning some cast members simply couldn’t fit rehearsal time into their day and others were lost to Swine Palace’s production of Disney High School Musical.