The Daily talked with theater major and senior Brendan Shea, who is a member of the mime troop Hype!, has acted in many shows, and has directed 12 performances himself. He will direct the upcoming show "[sic]," which opens in April.
Tufts Daily: How did you get involved in theater?
Brendan Shea: It all started when I played Gaston in eighth grade. It was pretty awesome, and I guess it made me hungry for more applause. I directed plays and acted in high school as well. After high school I came to Tufts and thought I was going to be a classics major or something. But then I got involved in a show my first semester, and I've stayed with it.
TD: What do you like best about theater?
BS: Theater is pretty easy to create, and there are things you can do with theater that you can't do with any other art form. There's a good relationship between the performer and the performance. The audience is captivated, and they have to watch whatever is on stage, even the crazy stuff I like to do. They're witnessing stuff that they can't see anywhere else: the creation of art. Theater is an adaptable, easy art form, and it doesn't really get the buzz that it deserves. In Boston, it's kind of dying out as a quality art form. People go to New York City or to see films instead. I want to bring people back to theater. I hope to strike out and make my way in the professional theater world. I want to do something that is relevant and that will draw a young, hip crowd.
TD: How is the type of theater that you're interested in different from conventional plays?
BS: With conventional theater - I call it "sitcom theater" - you know what you're going to get before it even starts. But with more experimental theater, you never know what you'll find. I'm a big fan of this realist and avant-garde movement. I think it's pretty hilarious. I'm a big fan of adaptation and re-adaptation. In theater you can take a classic and totally recreate it. You might think "wouldn't it be cool to see Hamlet in a clown costume?" and in theater you can totally do that. Working with the extreme gets me off, I guess, and remaking something to the nth degree is exciting. I feel like theater is taking the cue from these extreme performance artists and becoming more experimental stuff and I hope people will start to appreciate it.
TD: Do you prefer acting or directing?BS: I like to perform, and both acting and directing are facets of performance. I like both equally, but I'm pursuing directing because it's fun to be in charge on stuff, and after it all happens, I can be like "holy sh-, I made that work." But then, especially with the more experimental stuff I'm into, sometimes it doesn't work and you have to just sit back and let it go.
TD: How has college contributed to your experience with theater?
BS: Well, there are a lot of books at the library and that's been really helpful. But even a boring class can inform the theater I'm making. Everything you learn in life you can use in making your choices. Just being at Tufts, which has an incredible academic discipline and tons of intramural activities (which are almost a sensory overload), gives me experiences to draw from in the future. More specifically, the good thing about directing at Tufts is that we're all in this to learn. It's a safe place to experiment with stuff. Once I get out into the theater world, it's going to be hard to get my voice - my crazy, inner child - heard. If you aren't being extreme here, when are you going to do it?
