Four weeks for ‘Twelfth Night’ is theatre students’ dream come true

Tucked off the main campus, down in the rehearsal studios of the Entertainment Technology Center on Palm Avenue, there’s some serious fun under way. Students are drinking, dancing, jesting and carousing their way through a wacky love triangle of a story. Oh, and there’s cross dressing. And a shipwreck.

If it sounds downright Shakespearean, that’s because it is. To be precise, it’s the performance workshop offered during interterm by the Department of Theatre, which uses the January session to conduct rehearsals for its winter play, which this year is “Twelfth Night” by William Shakespeare.

Under the direction of Tom Bradac, associate professor and founder and creative director of Shakespeare Orange County, the class meets daily for intensive, afternoon-long rehearsals. Besides earning three units, the students have the luxury of focusing entirely on their roles without a full load of additional coursework.

“I’m used to juggling the character and creating the world of the character and all my other classes at the same time,” said Cindy Nguyen ’14, a theatre performance major who plays Feste the clown in “Twelfth Night.” “It’s really nice to have this time to focus on the work.”

“Twelfth Night” will be staged at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 14, through Saturday, Feb. 16, and Thursday Feb. 21, through Saturday, Feb. 23. A 2 p.m. matinee will presented Saturday, Feb. 23. For ticket information, visit the Calendar of Events website.