Why is it called Combat Theater? Combat is this challenge to come up with a play in 24
hours, to write it, act it, tech it, and then perform it the next day. It’s been a tradition
for about 15 years. We invite Stage Troupe, Wandering Minds, and On Broadway. Everyone
knows what you’re getting into when you go into combat. You’re going to get silly
performances. It doesn’t matter whether it’s brilliant or life-changing, it’s
just something fun that we do, and we can all come together and do theater for a day.
Right now I’m waiting for all the writers to come from every different team, and inside
these envelopes, I have a special theme, a special line, two technical elements, and
a prop that they have to incorporate inside their scripts that they have 12 hours to write
before they hand off to the actors. Okay, ready, ready guys? Everyone take it. We can’t
open it until we get with the writing team. Hello my lovely groupies. I’m proud to announce
that the theme of this year’s Combat theme is xoxo Gossip Girl. The prop is a cat carrier.
The first thing that comes to my mind is maybe we do some kind of weird murder mystery, like
who is Gossip Girl. From the guidelines we took Gossip Girl and the cat carrier and we
said “why don’t we write a play about Gossip Girl’s cats?” Lights up on a cat
on a podium, middle of the stage, licking her paw. She turns to the audience, purs,
then speaks: “Listen to me!” As the night gets longer, the ideas get crazier. Everything’s
a good idea when you’re writing a script that will go up in 12 hours. Let me tell you
about the play. The story of Combat 2015 was kind of West Side Story-esque battle between
the rich cats and the stray cats all fighting over this matriarch grandmother cat’s secret
fortune. So, why don’t we just jump into it, all right? Let’s go. I’ve never directed
something quite like Combat before. You’re not given the time to full-on critically worry
about every little detail in the script. You’re allowed to just kind of take your brain a
little bit out of the equation and put your heart right into it. We really liked the use
of choreography this year, we were like really into specifically mapping out parts, and like
there was a part where the street cats come in and they were like [snapping]. How often
do you get to portray a cat on stage? I think technicians definitely play around around
as the actors do. There’s definitely a lot of playing around with lights. Like, slightly
up diagonal. That’s perfect. I’d say the biggest technical element is costumes. Slide
it through nice and gentle. There you go. All the different groups, after spending their
days acting and teching, will assemble at the theater at 6 p.m., get into costume, prepare,
do their insane warm-ups. Then at 8 p.m. it’s showtime, and we all get in the student theater
and magic happens. Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow. I would hope that people
take away fro the experience that their theater groups are a ridiculous, fun, safe place where
people can be their selves. It’s hard to really sense that there’s a theater community
sometimes, just because we’re so busy doing our own things, that when you get together
for an event like Combat, and you see just all the groups together as one, it reminds
us why we do theater. It’s to have fun and sort of just loosen up and bond over what
we all love.