Holding onto childhood dreams a "Reach"

By Jeff Christian
The Collegian

Fresno State theatre arts major Michael Oldham’s interest in drama sparked from one simple fact — he was cheap.

When picking elective classes in junior high, Oldham chose drama class over wood shop because it was $20 cheaper.

Now years later, the Experimental Theatre Company, Fresno State’s student-run play production group, will debut, “Reach,” a play that was written and directed by Oldham.

The script has been nominated for two Kennedy Center Awards: the David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award and the Mark Twain Comedy Playwriting Award.

Oldham was inspired to write the play nine months ago after a conversation with a recently married friend made him realize that most people give up on their career aspirations.

“A buddy of mine got married and he had just discovered that his wife was pregnant and we were talking. I just thought it was crazy because I remembered that he wanted to be a teacher and now he was stuck working at PG&E for the rest of his life so he could feed his kid. It just kind of made me sad, but he said, ‘everybody has a dream in high school but nobody ever does anything about it.’ I thought that he was right and that it takes a really special person to actually stick to their dream,” Oldham said.

“Reach” is a comedic-drama that examines the struggles and reality of compromising one’s dreams.

The script follows the friendship of Bailey and Chaz, best friends, who had similar dreams but whose paths have diverted.

Bailey, played by Fresno State theatre arts major Adam Schroeder, is struggling to attain his dream of becoming a professional actor.

Unlike Bailey, Chaz, played by Yosef Mahmood, takes a more realistic approach and ditches his aspirations to find work that provides more stability for him and his girlfriend, Ali.

“He’s a practical kind of guy who likes to pal around with his friend Bailey but he is more serious than Bailey is. He’s focused on his job and his relationship with his girlfriend Ali, but he still has a level of immaturity that is embodied in his friendship with Bailey,” Mahmood said.

Mahmood, a double major in political science and theatre arts, can relate closely to the personality aspects and choices that embody Chaz.

“The direction I want to go in now is law and that’s why I’m a political science major. But, I also love theatre and I look at it as something that I would love to do, but something that probably won’t pay the bills or put food on the table. If I had the choice to whatever I wanted and everything else would be taken care of, I would choose theatre. So, in that sense, I’m more like Chaz,” Mahmood said.

Bailey’s sister Laura, played by Lacey Bartlett, has a few emotionally charged, dramatic exchanges with Bailey. The continuous rehearsal of those emotional scenes has taken its toll on Bartlett over the last two months and she has been forced to maintain an emotional balance and take extra time to separate herself from her character.

Although Oldham describes the play as a comedic-drama, it also contains moments of strong drama and emotion.

Those emotional scenes have been challenging for Schroeder.

“I’m not a real emotional person. Even though there are similarities, I had to make the similarities more personal and push those as far as they would go in order to make them more emotional for me. I can be emotional, but the things that I have to be emotional about in this show, I’m not that emotional. So that’s been the challenge,” Schroeder said.

Another challenging aspect for the actors is working with a director who also happens to be the writer of the script.

“You know that they know what every line means so there is a lot of pressure with that. You have a certain respect for the script because you know it’s their baby that they poured their blood, sweat and tears into. You’re almost sometimes afraid to make something new because you know how much they love the whole script, but he’s been great about letting us try new stuff and explore a lot of different emotional places,” Bartlett said.

The most interesting aspect of the play is that it causes the audience and actors involved to examine their own lives and the choices they’ve made. They can also determine which character they resemble and if one lifestyle is better than the other.

“I’m more like Bailey for sure. I have to fight the Chaz in me everyday,” Bartlett said.

“I think what this play does so well is that it puts a light on realistic issues very realistically. People can walk away saying ‘I’m a little bit of every single one of those characters and there is a little bit in every one of those characters that I do and don’t like.’ Maybe they can walk away with a reflection on their life of what they don’t want to do,” Schroeder said.

The play also contains strong language and adult situations. Oldham was worried that the colorful language and content would prevent the play from being selected, but he said that he was prepared for any backlash that it might create.

“Everybody was really supportive of this because it was a brand-new play and it was a student work. It was never really a thing that people thought about but I know I’m going to catch some flack for it,” Oldham said.

Oldham hopes to get the play published. If successful, all future performances will list this particular cast as the first performers.

The first of four performances this weekend begins Friday at 4 p.m. in Lab School room 101.

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