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July 31, 2007

In the Spotlight

Play chosen focuses on sensitive subject of pedophilia

Story by: Ray Edward Buffington IV

The Shorthorn staff

The Shorthorn: Mykah Wright

Natalie Gaupp, theater arts visiting assistant professor and adviser, had her play, Candy, chosen by the Association for Theatre in Higher Education New Play Development Workshop. The association’s 2007 New Orleans conference will hold the performance of the play as well.

It is a playwright’s dream to see the words she pours into her scripts come to life in the spotlight and on the stage.

Unfortunately, only the strongest and most compelling pieces make the cut in the sometimes harsh world of theater.

One theater arts visiting assistant professor will now see her work come to life on the national stage.

Natalie Gaupp’s one-act play was selected by the Association for Theatre in Higher Education to be work-shopped and performed at the annual convention July 24-29 in New Orleans.

This is the second time Gaupp’s work was chosen for the national competition, in which four to five playwrights are invited every year to bring their scripts.

“I feel fortunate to have been chosen,” she said. “Getting the opportunity to develop a stage play is a rare thing.”

Her script, Candy, is a look into the life of a pedophile who ponders whether to turn in self-taped confessions of his crimes to police.

Gaupp began writing the script in 2004 as part of a contest that asked playwrights to submit plays about addictions.

She chose child molestation as her theme to “raise the stakes” and challenge herself, she said.

“Sometimes I will purposely work with subject matter or characters that I find uncomfortable because I think it really opens my boundaries as a writer,” she said. “It makes us appreciate the goodness a lot more when you work with a piece that deals with the underbelly of society.”

At the workshop, each play was cast, followed by an intense week of research and rewrites with the aid of dramaturges, directors and fellow writers, she said. At the end of the week, all plays were performed.

Gaupp said having so many people poke, pull and pry at her work didn’t intimidate her.

“The task at hand was to kind of groom this play and make it the best that it could possibly be,” she said. “No one ever crossed the line where they were rewriting my play.”

Gaupp said one of the highlights of the finale was having Gary Garrison, Dramatists Guild of America president, comment on her work.

“It was hard not to be swept away by who he is,” she said. “This man spends his time with Pulitzer Prize winners. Even with the workshop over, I am still going to tweak the play a bit based on some of the things he said.”

Theater arts chair Kim LaFontaine said he was proud of and not surprised at Gaupp’s achievement.

“The fact that it was chosen at a major national theater conference by her peers is a great honor,” he said. “Natalie does fine work not only in her playwrighting but for our department as theater adviser and also professor for the directing and acting classes.”

He said there may be a possibility of seeing Candy on the Mainstage.

“We have done some of Natalie’s plays in the past, and they have always been high quality and have been very successful,” he said.