Dramatic Improvement : CSUN’s ‘Foreign Language Theatre’ gives students the chance to increase their fluency as they learn their lines.

Chris Surprenant, a graduate business student not recognized for his acting skills, took center stage and took on another culture.

His assignment: Jesus Christ in “Pecca to Confessato,” an Italian play taped by a Cal State Northridge class for a weekly cable television audience. Surprenant played the role speaking near-fluent Italian and, afterward, raved about the new world he had entered.

“When I was up there, I was Italian,” said Surprenant, 28. “You could have told me I was in Italy, and I would have believed you. In the classroom, it’s difficult to immerse yourself in that other culture. Not here.”

That is exactly what Dorette Egilsson, an assistant professor of foreign languages and literature, had hoped to achieve last fall when she started the new 30-minute series, “Foreign Language Theatre,” which gives CSUN students a chance to take their growing language proficiencies beyond the stale classroom.

“The moment they assume that part, they become a part of that culture, and it’s easier for them to speak the language,” Egilsson said. “When they go into the literature, they are forced into the action and feel less inhibited and, if they make a mistake, it’s their character, not them.”

Students from 10 language classes participate in skits, poetry and novel readings, or full-length plays that air on Cablevision’s public access channel at 8 p.m. Tuesdays and are repeated on its educational channel at 10:30 a.m. Fridays. During most of the productions, a narrator summarizes the plot in English.

For Virginia Piscitello, who played a peasant narrator in “Peccato Confessato,” the program is helping her piece together her past. After her grandparents came from Italy, they decided to leave their heritage behind. Her father didn’t even learn Italian, which she considers a “tragedy.” This class makes up for that mistake.

“It was now or never,” said Piscitello, 23. “When I learn the language, I plan to contact my relatives over there.”

The pressure of knowing their work will be seen on television--Egilsson regularly notifies high schools of upcoming productions--has added a sense of urgency to their studies. “I didn’t want to mess up my lines,” said Mike DeMattia, 21, a senior, who portrayed the priest, Don Camillo, the play’s protagonist. “I wanted to make it as entertaining as possible. I knew I could be a priest, even though I’m far from that.”

Egilsson came up with the idea for the program three years ago after she produced several campus plays in German and Spanish. She then secured the cooperation of class instructors, who volunteer their time, and the school’s media center, which makes the video and sound equipment available. However, there are no plans yet for the program to continue beyond September.

The languages covered by the program include Italian, German, French, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, Armenian, Latin and Hebrew.

“The point is to get them to know the language,” said Patrizia Miller, who teaches Italian at CSUN. “They are amateurs, but they are very dedicated.”

WHERE AND WHEN

* What: Cal State Northridge’s Foreign Language Theatre.

* When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays on Cablevision Channel 27, 10:30 a.m. Fridays on Channel 29, through September.