Major upgrades to Cutco Theater’s lighting, sound system, and overall aesthetics in recent years have allowed SUNY Jamestown Community College to hold many more gatherings, presentations, and events on its Cattaraugus County Campus.
Now, Mark Sasse wants to bring theatrical performances featuring JCC students to the downtown Olean theater. Since joining the college as arts programming administrator last fall, one of Sasse’s goals has been to recruit Cattaraugus County Campus students to become involved in JCC’s theater offerings that have mostly been developed for the Jamestown Campus and its robust Scharmann Theatre.
“I want to do a collaboration show between the two campuses,” Sasse said, “basically like dramatic duets where two people are working on a short script with one performance in Jamestown and one in Olean.”
Sasse is working on creating an Emerging Artist Showcase event in April in which students would contribute to a performance by directing, writing, acting and producing it.
“I would travel over and work with the group in Olean on some scripts that they would perform in Jamestown for two nights with students over there,” Sasse said. “If I can get that off the ground, it’s very possible that I can bring that whole show to the Cutco Theater for a night as well because it’s a very minimalistic type of performance.”
Paula Snyder, executive director of the Cattaraugus County Campus, is intrigued by the opportunity of involving students in productions and bringing shows to Cutco. She has even volunteered to help transport students between campuses for practices and performances.
“Mark has great ideas for what we can do to engage our students here and get them active in theater,” Snyder said. “The revamped theater here on campus is modern again thanks to funding from the Cattaraugus County legislature and a private donor and is ready to host JCC and community theater productions”
Snyder added that the theater can be rented for community productions and other events and gatherings.
Sasse likes the potential of the space for more personal shows to engage the audience.
“It’s what they call a black box theater – very minimalistic, very intimate, fast-moving shows,” he said. “Oftentimes I will have six different stories that we tell. When one is done, the other starts … in and out fast. They’re really fun shows. I’ve done a lot of them in the past. Audiences really love the fast pace telling of the stories. I think that will work well.”
Sasse plans on coming to a spring semester welcome party on the Cattaraugus County Campus at 12:20 p.m. on Jan. 29 in the College Center Student Union in hopes of meeting more students and signing them up to participate in the showcase. For more information, contact Sasse at 716.338.1166