Story by Audrey Tyson/COMM 2311.001 and Photos by Nolan Laminack/COMM 1316
If one play wasn’t interesting enough, the South Plains College Theatre Department will be performing the entirety of Greek Mythology for their fall play. The seven chosen cast members of “The Iliad, the Odyssey, and All Greek Mythology in 99 Minutes” will be performing 20 characters each in their 99-minute performance this October.
This year’s annual fall production will be held at the SPC Theatre from Oct. 31 through Nov. 3. Tickets will be available to students for $5 and $8 for non-students. Tickets can be purchased by clicking here.
Dr. Daniel Nazworth, the Chair of Fine Arts and Director of Theatre at SPC, “does plays.” Not only does he “do plays,” but he does the lights, costumes, directing, projections, and promotion for every SPC production.
“That’s pretty much it, because as you notice, I’m it,” Nazworth said regarding his various responsibilities. “So all of those things—one me.”
Nazworth’s creative vision is uninhibited by major and pertains more to the potential value of the “exercise.” In this instance, how seven cast members can play 140 parts, and how props can serve to distinguish them.
“The reason was more along the lines of the experiment, not Greek mythology. A simple set for the right number of actors for what I figured I could do,” Nazworth said.
“All Greek Mythology” is casting a wide net, and each of the seven cast members will take on 20 rolls each. Of the seven members, only two are theatre majors; the other five members are from the SPC student body. Nazworth believes the flexibility and creativity required for performing in the theater are valuable to anyone willing to commit.
“The thing is that you get on stage and you have to learn how to think, you have to learn how to make quick decisions,” Nazworth said. “You have to do a lot of things just to get your brain working so that you’re not thinking in a linear fashion.”
The classic arts like live theatre have seen a period of declined engagement since the conception of motion pictures and dropped even further following the advent of live-streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. The Washington Post cited the 2023 “Survey of Public Participation in the Arts” that notes how traffic has diminished even further after the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020.
“I imagine there are students or people now, students especially, who after Covid, have never been to a movie theater. And will they go back? No. Why? Because they watch it on their phone when they want to,” Nazworth said.
The SPC theatre has 224 seats, and the population of Levelland is 12,374 according to the 2023 census, and according to Dr. Nazworth, around 10% of the surrounding community will attend events like the fall play. That means that there are 100 more seats available for the upcoming performance, and more opportunity for SPC and the city of Levelland to show their support.
“The beauty of live theater is, come Nov. 3, this show will be over with and it’ll never happen again,” Nazworth said. “Even if we were to pull everybody back in next spring and do it again, it wouldn’t be the same show.”
Both theater enthusiasts and newcomers can find more information on the SPC Theatre Facebook page, or by stopping by South Plains College itself. If not, there’s no need to worry as Dr. Nazworth intends to keep “doing plays” in the future, and the chance to experience something interesting will come again.
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