The Great Garrison, By Mike Van Zandt

Hello! My name is Mike Van Zandt. I am a Master's student of theater at UC Santa Cruz department of Performance, Play and Design. I am currently directing and producing an original play that I wrote called, The Great Garrison. The UC Santa Cruz Department of of Performance, Play and Design has been wonderful to offer my play a spot in the departmental calendar, as well as an incredible theater in which to perform. But this production was not part of the original school year calendar and therefore does not have a departmental budget. This tiny detail is not standing in our way! We are creating sets, costumes and props with funds we are gathering ourselves! I have, along with my wife Kate, been making plays with beautiful design under these same circumstances for the entirety of my theater education. We are already building and creating a world for this play that we are very excited about and proud of. However, this full length play will be the largest piece that we have produced thus far, and we are asking our friends, family, and community for contributions to finish this production.

This play, The Great Garrison, is in support of my Master's thesis, which focuses on anti war theater. It is an experimental piece wherein I am examining my own theories on the efficacy of different techniques within the genre of anti war theater. It is loosely based on my experiences in the Army, where I served from 2014-2018, stationed in Texas and deployed to Korea. I returned from service and attended UCLA's school of Theater, Film and Television on my GI bill. Now, as a graduate student, I am afforded the opportunity to apply my experiences in the military and making theater into my thesis in support of the kind of art that I am passionate about.

The funds raised will go to the creation of set pieces, costumes and props, as well as printing scripts and extended publicity. Although this play is set within a military base in Texas, the world of the play also has elements of surrealism and absurdity. This means that, though our cast of 11 will be in uniform, it won't look quite like what you would be expecting if you are imagining green fatigues. We hope that, whether you can donate or not, you will come see this play and all the hard work that I and our entire ensemble are putting into it!

The play is:

April 26th-28th

Friday 26th and Saturday 27th at at 7:30 pm

Sunday 28th at 3:00pm

UC Santa Cruz Second Stage Theater

ADMISSION IS FREE!

All of our donors will be listed in our program. Also, as a special thank you to our donors, we would like to offer you a poster from the play, as well as piece of art from a corresponding installation piece that Kate and I collaborated on earlier this year. The installation also stands in support of my anti war theater thesis and is comprised of various pieces of a soldier's armor kit cast in porcelain. We are honored to gift some of these pieces of sculpture to our donors to show the deep gratitude we have for their support in bringing this play to life. We hope to display this installation in the lobby of the Second Stage Theater, so you will all get to see this work and it's correlation to the performance piece.

It's never too late to give to this project! We are accepting donations up through the final performance; they will offset the costs of what we have already spent out of pocket.

Thank you so much for you support! We'll see you at the theater!