VIDEO: '/faust' starts today in the PAC

Western Washington University’s Department of Theatre and Dance will perform an original play titled “/faust” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 2, through Saturday, June 6, with an additional show at 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 6, at Western’s Performing Arts Center (PAC).

Tickets for students are $7-12 and $12-$17 for the general public. Discounts are available for WWUfaculty and staff.

Students and faculty from the Department of Theatre and Dance collaborated with film students from the English department to create the performance. The work is inspired by Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe’s “The Tragical History of Doctor Faust.”

“/faust” follows the story of Felix and Mara, a film-making couple on the cusp of artistic success and recognition, who are also engaged to be married.  It is different from a traditional production because it has been devised by 17 theatre students, using original source material such as Christopher Marlowe's work, as well as “Goethe's Faust,” along with numerous film adaptations of the Faust myth.

The show also features novel staging. Audiences will be seated in the front section of the main stage balcony, transforming the theatre into a large projection surface.

Rich Brown, the lead devisor/lead director, won the National Award for Outstanding Lead Deviser/Director from the Kennedy Center in 2012. Brown’s last two devised works from Western have been invited to the regional American College Theatre Festival. Brown began collaborating with KavehAskari, a film studies professor in Western’s English department, in December 2013.

Film and theatre classes were scheduled with overlapping time for the students to collaborate on the work.  Theatre student performers/devisers were cast last November and performed research and creation phases during winter quarter classes. The final performance piece was developed and rehearsed during spring quarter.

“The original hunch was to track the history of the moving image through the Faust myth, to equate Faust's need for knowledge and power with the creative act of generating narratives, theatre, films,” Brown said of the basis for “/faust.” Brown said he envisioned the play finding a receptive audience in emerging adults at the crossroads of spirituality, ambition and passion.

Tickets and information are available at cfpa.wwu.edu/theatredance or at the WWU Ticket Office: 360-650-6146. For more information contact Chris Casquilho, arts manager of Marketing and Special Events, at 360-650-2829 or chris.casquilho@wwu.edu.