April’s spring comedies

Film production is as hard as producing live plays for theaters. Every detail is dedicated to making the final project perfect and appealing to the audience.

The Albert L. Jeffers Theater, which is the largest and best-established successful community theater in the Valley, is preparing for two plays that will be presented this month, said David Carren, a UTRGV associate professor and interim department chair of Theater/Television/Film. They are “She Kills Monsters,” a comedy written by Qui Nguyen and 2013 winner of the American Alliance Theatre and Education Distinguished Play Award, and “Bug Joy,” a fantasy written by Jan Seale, the 2012 Texas Poet Laureate.

“She Kills Monsters” is about Agnes Evans following the death of her younger sister, Tilly. Agnes finds her sister’s Dungeons and Dragons notebook and enters an imaginary world of refuge that was Tilly’s. The play is filled with dramatic comedy, ’90s pop culture, adult situations and language. The play will take place at 7:30 p.m. April 19-22 and 2 p.m. April 23.

After a comedic romp into the world of fantasy role-playing games, the following play is “Bug Joy,” which is appropriate for all ages. It will run at 7 p.m. April 27-29 and 2 p.m. April 29-30.

Every production in the Albert L. Jeffers Theater is selected a year in advance so that directors can start working on the shows as soon as six months before they are presented. Duties include reading the script, figuring out how they want to approach the story, designing the set, casting and many other preparations.

“We try to do shows that are entertaining, that will attract an audience but will also have community theater engagement,” Carren said.

The shows are made possible by the UTRGV theatre students, faculty and staff, who help to bring the story to life through their acting and designing talents. Community members are also cast in the plays, especially young children.

The set for “She Kills Monsters” is designed by Cara Tougas, a UTRGV lecturer, and is being built by Eric Sanchez, UTRGV technical director and production manager of the Theatre/Television/Film department. Tougas designed the set to have tiers separating the two worlds in which the play takes place.

“It’s actually a multi-tiered stage, there’s different levels of platform that we have here,” Sanchez said. “Because the play itself takes place in two worlds–the real world and the game world Dungeons and Dragons … the set is constructed in a way to separate both worlds. The platform area is the real world and the non-platform area is the game world.”

Carren, a fan of comedy, encourages the public to attend both plays because they’re fun to watch.

“We need the students to come to the shows, we need the community to come to the shows and have a good time because we want to keep doing this,” he said. “We want to keep producing the shows we’ve been producing in a very high level of quality that serves so many purposes, [such as] entertainment, education, community engagement.”

Tickets for “She Kills Monsters” are $20 for reserved seating, $15 general admission and $5 for UTRGV students, faculty and staff. For “Bug Joy,” tickets are priced at $10 each.

For more information about the plays and theatre department, call 665-3888 in Edinburg or email david.carren@utrgv.edu.