At Georgetown, Ambition Steps to Center Stage

Clark Young, 21, is playing George W. Bush in David Hare's "Stuff Happens."

"I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain," Young, as Bush, says during rehearsals at Georgetown University, where the new and up-and-coming theater program has landed the D.C. premiere of Hare's hot-potato play. Part verbatim public statements, part surmise, "Stuff Happens" puts key figures of the Bush administration onstage and examines the run-up to war in Iraq.

If it seems odd for college kids to be (a) tackling such parts and (b) getting attention for a campus play, those are natural consequences of Derek Goldman's rapidly evolving undergraduate Theater and Performance Studies program at Georgetown.

Goldman, who holds the dual titles of program director and artistic director, founded his own professional company -- StreetSigns Center for Literature and Performance -- when he was between academic degrees at Northwestern University, where he was mentored by famous professor-directors Frank Galati and Mary Zimmerman. Goldman says StreetSigns functioned as "a lab, as Georgetown itself is, for thinking about the relationships between the professional community and the university campus."

Such relationships exist across the country, of course, but frequently in graduate conservatory programs, or in dubious situations where the pros grab the spotlight while students don't get onstage at all. Georgetown -- graduating its first-ever class of theater majors this spring -- seems to be keeping the students front and center.

Thus is Young playing the president in an anticipated local premiere. The student actor -- a double major in English and the theater and performance studies program -- has clearly put a bit of research into his portrayal.

"Everyone goes in with their own idea of George W. Bush," says Young, a junior, "and I want to have a moment of recognition for each member of the audience . . . like, 'Yeah, I remember how he was before 9/11.' "

"Georgetown as a whole tends to draw students who are very committed to social justice, to international politics," Goldman says. "So we really lead with questions of why does it matter? Who's it for? What's its relationship to the community? In other places, often it's about, how am I going to make it?"

Yet the programming, housed in the sparkling new $28 million Davis Performing Arts Center, often bristles with professional-grade ambition. Recent world premieres include the manga-influenced "Trees and Ghosts" and the chamber opera "Wisconsin Death Trip," both filled with challenges for student performers and technical crew. And Goldman's play selection has more than once filled voids in local theater: Georgetown has already produced the area premieres of Sarah Ruhl's "Eurydice" and Lynn Nottage's "Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine."

Goldman is using 19 actors as he directs "Stuff Happens," a cast too big for most professional theaters. "I understand the economics of it," he says. "And I understand that sometimes this is a town that likes to keep its politics and its theater separate. But I was still surprised to find nobody jumping at the play." (Olney Theatre Center has the local professional premiere in June.)

In addition to acting in Hare's drama, the students are enrolled in a full-credit dramaturgical course called "Stuff Happens." It's another intersection, bringing research and serious scholarship to bear on what is often the strictly theatrical experience of putting on a show.

Meanwhile, Goldman seems to be building bridges as fast as he can to the theater community at large. A partnership with Arena Stage keyed to developing new work has led to residencies by hip-hop theater artist Danny Hoch and writer-director Moisés Kaufman (whose "33 Variations," workshopped in 2006 and debuted at Arena last fall, just nabbed a $25,000 new-play award).

The Irish troupe Solas Nua has performed in the flexible Devine Studio Theatre, where Rorschach Theatre takes up residence this summer. (The extremely well-equipped 236-seat Gonda Theatre is the Davis Center's main stage.) Goldman recently directed "As You Like It" with the Folger Theatre; next season he'll tackle "Eurydice" for Bethesda's Round House Theatre, with the same designer he used for the Georgetown production.

Also next season, the department will partner with the locally acclaimed Synetic Theatre for "Lysistrata," blending professional students and actors. Goldman will direct, with choreography by Irina Tsikurishvili (like her husband, Synetic Artistic Director Paata Tsikurishvili, a very recent hire at the school).

Students seem to be responding to the energy. Goldman, who arrived in 2005 as the Davis Center opened, reports that the program is "bursting at the seams." The expanded pool of faculty and adjuncts -- "scholar-artists," Goldman likes to say -- offers 20-plus classes per semester, more than doubling the output of three years ago.

"This is really fast change," Goldman says. As for thrusting students into the middle of frequently untested new material, he says: "There are simpler models. But the rewards partly come from the fact that people notice. It also means more people come see their work. And that's a great experience for them."

Young agrees, although he's not committing to a theater career when he graduates.

"I'm enjoying one show at a time here," he says. "And one semester at a time."