The Louisiana Tech School of Theatre’s Theatre Showcase, an eccentric blend of original and developing works, all written and produced by students in Tech’s playwriting and beginning and advanced acting classes, runs Tuesday through Friday (Oct. 27-30) at 7:30 p.m. online.

To watch, tune in to Twitch.tv/TechTheatreDept each evening; just click the link and enjoy.

Expect the unexpected with a selection of short plays ranging from vampire love stories to high school popularity drama and all that lies in between. The department is making it easy for “the audience” to binge a variety of staged characters in action, and all from the safety and comfort of your living room.

Similar to YouTube in presentation, Twitch is a new and popular streaming app that began as a way for video gamers to allow fans to watch them play. It can be set up as an account for pay-per-view or to solicit donations, but the Theatre Showcase is a free event.

“The show itself is our solution to the current pandemic,” said School of Theatre Director Mark Guinn. “We cannot create and build fully realized shows safely in the time frame we’ve enjoyed pre-pandemic. The School of Theatre is also currently ‘performer heavy,’ so we’ve created an opportunity for the performers in the department to grow their craft.”

“There are 10 plays, two of which are experiments with motion capture and voice over and one solo piece,” said Guinn, who estimates each night’s performance will run approximately 90 minutes or less.

The project is being spearheaded by Andrew Ray, or “Aray,” an adjunct filing the department’s vacant tenure track acting/directing position. Aray is a 2010 MA alumni, is a professional actor, fight director, certified teacher, and motion capture artist.

Aray said students in his fall acting class have taken a diverse and thorough approach to character development, and that he challenged his students “to take a deep look at what makes people who they are, to look at stories and experiences through the point of view of others, and to listen and try to understand.”

The hope, he said, was “to find a deeper understanding of what makes each and every one of us unique. To create a space where anyone from any background could come in and feel seen, that their stories, culture and experiences are represented and heard. A space where we can develop process, make mistakes, talk about how our work is seen, and work through our struggles, insecurities, and frustrations as a collective diverse company.”

“This show is a representation of the original work of the students of Louisiana Tech,” Aray said, “in the hopes of opening the doors of this theater department to everyone, to see our struggles, our successes, our family, in the hopes that more people will feel welcome to come in and share their experiences, their art, and their process.”

Got questions? Call 318.257.3942 for more information.