PIERCE COLLEGE : Student Writer-Director Honored

Pierce College student writer and director Christian Gossett presented his original play “The Beyonders” at the regional Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival competition at Cal State Fresno this month.

Although Gossett’s one-act play did not place in the competition, Gossett received a Meritorious Achievement Award for writing and directing. He was the only student in the competition to write and direct a production.

“There was such a wonderful response to the show that people came up afterward and expressed the desire to produce it at other colleges,” Gossett said. “That was a high compliment.”

The cast from “The Beyonders” also received a Meritorious Achievement Award for ensemble acting, and two of the play’s musicians, David Levoff and Andy Wyszkowski, received a similar award for musical composition.

“The Beyonders” is an autobiographical “labor of love” that Gossett said he began writing last summer because he “wanted to make a very real portrayal of our generation,” the late teens to early 20s.

“This world is geared toward making people little more than someone who goes to work in the morning, comes home at night and goes to bed, pays their taxes, and so forth,” said Gossett, who explained that his play is about the search for meaning in life.

“Each of the characters comes on one moment in their life that connects them with the part of themselves that can take them beyond their mundane situation and connects them to their dream, whatever it may be,” Gossett said.

“I hope that our generation realizes that life is very short. They shouldn’t be afraid to do what they want with their life because it is their life and nobody else’s.”

Gossett’s play was one of three selected to compete in the theater festival regional finals from among 24 original student productions from two- and four-year colleges in Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah.

The other two schools represented in the finals were San Jose State University and USC, whose production was declared the winner. The USC production will participate in the non-competitive American College Theatre Festival national festival at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.