‘Sweet 16’ for College Theater

Two years before George C. Scott assailed the Academy Awards, insisting that actors should not compete, the annual Kennedy Center / American College Theater Festival was founded to showcase the best of college theater. Since 1968, it has crowned winners in playoffs fierce enough to make Scott’s admonition seem quaint.

“This is really like the Sweet 16 of theater, said Thomas Bradac, drama department chair at Chapman University, which is hosting the festival’s Western regional finals today through Sunday. The kids have this team attitude, work long and hard for this, and feel the rush of getting together with their peers and seeing a whole variety of work.”

Nine productions--including two from University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and one from the sole Southern California representative, Los Angeles City College--will try to advance, along with shows from seven other regions, to the national finals in Washington, D.C., in late April.

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Bradac and his burgeoning staff of student volunteers expect as many as 1,200 students and civilians to turn out for the performances and related events (such as “Hollywood Then and Now,” a workshop featuring Gloria Stuart of “Titanic”) at various campus venues and the nearby Doubletree Hotel.

“It’ll be intense, and I think we’ll be ready for the avalanche,” Bradac said Friday from a front-row seat at the university’s Waltmar Theatre, where students were pushing brooms to clear the stage for the onslaught of sets scheduled to arrive today.

“You want to encourage a cross-fertilization of ideas,” he said. “I view this in the best ancient tradition when artists came together for festivals and competitions, and celebrated their commonality. It fits into the central idea of the university, to bring disparate groups of people together.”

No festival-goers, though, will get to sit in on one critical component: The detailed critique each cast and crew receives from the festival’s designated “respondent.”

In this round, that role falls to Carole Brandt, dean of Southern Methodist University’s Meadows School of the Arts, a longtime college theater director and a festival veteran. Taking into account Brandt’s evaluation, the four judges, including former South Coast Repertory Hispanic Playwrights director Jose Cruz Gonzalez, will select the finalist.

“They have the option to select none or more than one,” Brandt explained from her Dallas home. “My job begins with reading the scripts for all new plays in competition so I can differentiate script problems from directorial ones.”

With revivals, however, she likes to come in as fresh as the audience.

After the performances, Brandt spends as many as three hours going over her notes before providing comments to each show’s students and faculty.

“They want to hear how wonderful they were, but if the production doesn’t work, I need to explain to them why,” Brandt said. “You speak to them in as nonthreatening a way as possible, to let them know that you’ve been there on that side of the curtain too. The students and faculty are both really vulnerable to criticism at this point, so I have to establish a trust factor.”

After an initial period of defensiveness--”Oh, it can get pretty emotional,” she said--a pattern seems to develop: “I’ve always noticed that, finally, an understanding dawns. The students are hungry to get better, and they truly want honest, tough responses. But I’ve found that faculty attitudes are conveyed and picked up by students, whether they are good or bad attitudes.”

This leads to the trickiest part of all. Because most shows’ problems lie in the direction, and the director is almost always faculty, it “can be a hard thing to tiptoe around,” Brandt said.

Another hotly contested event will be the Irene Ryan acting scholarships, with two students--out of a field of hundreds of entrants--winning a $2,500 individual award. Student designers in costume, lighting, scenery, sound, props and makeup will compete for the Barbizon Awards for theatrical design excellence.

The festival isn’t all competition, however. A group of individual scenes, selected by the festival’s regional board, will be presented tonight in Memorial Hall, including a highlight from Chapman’s own revival of Caryl Churchill’s “Cloud Nine.”

Here is a rundown of the competing productions:

* “Ouroboros,” by S. Glenn Brown, performed by the University of Utah, today at 4 p.m. and 11 p.m.; Wednesday at 11 a.m. and 11 p.m. in Moulton Center.

* “Another Part of the House,” by Migdalia Cruz, performed by Sonoma State, Wednesday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. in Waltmar Theatre.

* “People Become Real,” by Paul Walstad Jr., performed by Utah Valley State College, Wednesday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.; Thursday at 11 a.m. in Wilkinson Hall.

* “Falsettos,” by William Finn and James Lapine, performed by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Thursday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. in the Waltmar Theatre.

* “Unto You,” by Leslie Ferreira, performed by the Los Angeles City College Theatre Academy, Thursday at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m.; Friday at 2 p.m. and 11 p.m. in Wilkinson Hall.

* “Endgame,” by Samuel Beckett, performed by Phoenix College, Friday at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. in Waltmar Theatre.

* “Much Ado About Nothing,” by William Shakespeare, performed by San Francisco State, Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. in the Chapman Auditorium (Memorial Hall).

* “The Father Clock,” by Walter Wykes, performed by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Saturday at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. in the Waltmar Theatre.

* “The Box,” by Andy Daub, performed by San Jose State, Saturday at 2:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. (double bill with “The Father Clock”) in the Waltmar Theatre.

* The Kennedy Center / American College Theatre Festival Western finals, Chapman University, 333 N. Glassell St., Orange. Today-Sunday. $49 for all events; (714) 744-7087. Tickets for individual shows: $15. (714) 997-6557.