The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Issue date: 1/22/09 Section: Verve

Young Producers Organization

On the very far south side of the University Center for the Arts, a member of the Young Producers Organization holds a door open. Not as a courtesy, but as a necessity. As a glitch in the workings of a new organization, the problem of locked UCA doors has yet to be solved for YPO.

"Because the doors are locked, we have to have someone stand and hold the door open to kind of sneak people into our shows. It's been kind of underground," Judd Farner, a junior theater major and the artistic director of YPO, said with laughter in his voice.

As a new theater production organization at CSU, the locked UCA doors are not the only doors that YPO has opened for students who are zealous about the performing arts. YPO is an organization made up of students and faculty who work to provide opportunities for students to gain hands-on experience with all sides of theater production.

And there is only one requirement to be involved.

"We just want to know that you have an idea and are willing to commit yourself to it and explore it," Farner said.

The roots of YPO are buried within the Alpha Psi Omega honors fraternity and its four members who organized a fundraising gala last March. The fundraiser, which Farner said served as YPO's inauguration, was a compilation of 15-minute-long theatrical performances.

As a formal organization, YPO will have put on 12 shows over the course of the 2008-2009 school year, including a freshman showcase, a fundraising Gala featuring student performances, a One-Act festival and monthly productions under a YPO program called Zing! -- the group's pseudo dinner theater.

"It's kind of enforcing our theater community we have," said Alex Ostwald, a freshman theater major and the Zing! general manager. "They (those involved) get that chance to fail without it hurting their reputation or losing a job."

Although the CSU theater department offers a variety of performance opportunities throughout the year, Seth Walter, a senior theater and political science double major and the communication director for YPO, said the organization brings fresh options to the community.

He said it gives students the chance to be "the creative side," of a theater production because they are writing, directing and performing shows, opposed to performing shows written by professors and professionals.

"We are giving them a chance to really get their feet wet in anything and everything that's involved in a theater production," he said.

Continued...

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