Original USU Theatre Production about Migrant Issues Honored

Do Not Hit Golf Balls Into Mexico, an original production presented in spring 2010 by the Fusion Theatre Project and the Utah State University Department of Theatrre Arts, was selected to perform at a regional theater festival in Los Angeles, Calif., Feb. 11.

“A primary focus of the play is on the American attitudes towards Mexican migrants who are often dehumanized, yet they sacrifice so severely for their families,” said Shawn Fisher, founder of the Fusion Theatre Project. “Utah is a very family-focused place and I thought an honest depiction of those sacrifices should be accessible for our audiences.”

Out of 65 productions entered for consideration, Do Not Hit Golf Balls Into Mexico was one of 10 selected for the Region VIII Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF), said John H. Binkley, chair for Region VIII KCACTF.

“We are proud of the company’s efforts toward this collaborative work and this regional recognition,” said Colin Johnson, interim department head of the department of theatre at USU.

The KCACTF regional board uses selective criteria when deciding which productions will be invited to perform. Criteria include the play’s content, type, uniqueness, interest and importance.

“We were impressed by the student and faculty field-trip research that went into creating the show, the theatricality of the performance and the show’s exploration of a current political issue in our country,” said Char Nelson, Region VIII KCACTF national playwriting chair.

“In addition to this being a new play, we felt this work found a way to address the border situation from a new point of view,” said Binkley.

The 18-member company literally started this two-year project with blank pages, said Fisher.

“We gathered many of the concepts for the play from personal interviews along the border of Arizona and Mexico and we each took ownership of every aspect of creation, from the research and writing to the designing and acting,” he said.

“We are touched by how the play creates so much empathy for the individuals in the situation,” said Binkley.

Theater programs throughout each state had the opportunity to submit performances to the review board for consideration to perform at the Region VIII KCACTF festival in February and the national festival in April. Region VIII includes Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii/Pacific Islands and southern California.

“I’m grateful to the theatre department and Caine College of the Arts for taking a leap of faith with our production, which offers a very non-traditional approach to theater,” Fisher said. “It was sort of a risk on the department’s part to let our production be judged by our regional KCACTF adjudicators, as only one or two productions from each program can be submitted annually, but I believe we served the department well.”

“It is a true artistic success for our students to not only attend this regional festival but to perform and express the strong social voice present in this play about the southwest borderlands issue,” said Craig Jessop, dean of the Caine College of the Arts.

Do Not Hit Golf Balls Into Mexico was written and produced by Fisher and directed by Adrianne Moore, a fellow faculty member in USU’s theatre department.

The Fusion Theatre Project, originally funded by the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation, is an experimental theatre company based at USU which strongly emphasizes socially relevant themes through original progressive theater works, like the complexity of the current United States and Mexico border issue presented in Do Not Hit Golf Balls Into Mexico.

Related links:

USU Theatre Arts Department

USU Caine College of the Arts

Writer: Courtney Lewis, 435-797-9203, courtney.lewis@usu.edu

Contact: Shawn Fisher, 435-757-1258, shawn.fisher@usu.edu