Presented by California Baptist University’s Wallace Theatre, Lauren Gunderson’s “The Book of Will” will take the stage with an opening weekend set for Friday, Feb. 21.
The play takes place three years after the death of Shakespeare and followed Henry Condell and John Heminges. The two men, played by students Kaleb Bravo and Santino Alvarado, embarked on a complex journey as they compiled their late friend’s stories into the “First Folio” to ensure they were not lost forever.
Zachary Bortot, director and producer of this year’s spring play, gave audience members an idea of what to expect while keeping details of the production close to his chest.
“They can expect a ‘dramedy.’ It is based on historical events but takes great artistic license with how that story is told,” Bortot said. “Also, while this play is the one set furthest in the past of all our productions this season, it feels the most contemporary in style. This is not a stuffy history piece.”
As the third production of this academic year, the audience could expect another performance that exemplified this season’s theme: “Artists Celebrated in Their Fields.” In addition to the unique storytelling of a seemingly well-known man, Bortot expressed themes of “love, loss and laughter,” as performed by CBU’s talented and hardworking student actors.
As the cast neared the play’s opening weekend, members spent most nights at the Wallace Theatre, whether taking promotional photos, trying on costumes or rehearsing.
On Feb. 11, the cast participated in the “Dress Parade,” a night when the actors tried on their Elizabethan-era costumes for the first time and the crew decided what alterations were needed before opening weekend. As actors poured out of the dressing room and paraded down the stairs, gasps and cheers echoed in the theatre, exhibiting the cast’s camaraderie.
Just as the cast and crew supported one another backstage, the support remained onstage, where they learned from each other and built their understanding of theater during rehearsals. Seth Suguitan, senior playing Richard Burbage, set the scene as he described how rehearsals typically ran.
“With rehearsals, there’s always gonna be some stops and goes, some choices you made that aren’t always gonna stick or land, so there’s always those, but then you have the directors and everyone around you kind of helping, giving suggestions” Suguitan said.
This collaborative environment provided a safe space for the cast to learn from one another, grow in their careers as actors, and develop meaningful relationships.
Bravo, junior playing Henry Condell, described what the bonds audience members saw on stage looked like behind the scenes.
“It feels like family. Although they are our professors, and we do feel that, it feels more than that, so you get that connection, you get those teachings, those lessons, and it honestly makes it a joy every single day,” Bravo said. “It doesn’t go over my head that it’s truly a blessing.”
While the play seemed new to the audience, it was familiar to the cast and crew, who had “been studying the script for almost three months now,” Bortot said.
Ready to share this touching true story with their audience, Shane Moser, CBU theatre alumnus and assistant director, shared the cast and crew’s goal in putting this production onstage.
“I think that we really want to show the audience how important art is and how impactful it can be to so many people and how universal it is,” Moser said. “Shakespeare is such a universal writer and author, and he writes about people and humans. When you really dig deep, you find these common human experiences and this love and this pain, and I hope that the audience can take away the beauty of that—the beauty of art.”
