by Matthew Giuliano
Contributing WriterHaving no budget or a stage to rehearse on doesn't exactly sound like a formula for success for a theater company, but the Houston Suitcase Theater has its own formula -- what it lacks in financial backing, it more than makes up for with energy and enthusiasm.
Created in the fall of 1992 by UH English Professor Elizabeth Brown-Guillory, THST has maintained its mission despite a lack of resources.
The purpose of the theater is "to give minority students a chance to get on stage and perform," said Brown-Guillory. "The main thing is working with the recruitment of minority students to campus. It's got to be very motivating to see black people on stage."
The professor said THST is a valuable complement to the UH theater community.
"We enhance campus theater," she said, "but we're not in competition with the theater
department."
THST will give a premier performance of Missing Sister today and Thursday at 10 a.m. in Cullen Performance Hall.
The play is about a family's struggle with a senior sister who has Alzheimer's disease. Throughout the play, however, the relationship between mothers and daughters becomes the central focus as the characters realize how much they need and depend on each other.
The ensemble play, written and directed by Brown-Guillory, will be performed by five black women, most of whom have no theatrical experience.
One of the neophyte actresses, Tracie Malrey, a junior English major, said, "I never expected to be in the play, but I didn't feel like such an amateur with this cast." Danita Wadley, a senior human development major, said she isn't worried about the several hundred people who will pack the Cullen Performance Hall.
Ironically, she said, "I'm nervous about performing in front of people I know."
Brown-Guillory, who based THST on Langston Hughes' own Harlem Suitcase Theatre, isn't worried about her actors getting stage fright.
"I'm so impressed with the progress they're making. By the time they get on stage, I'm very secure with what they can do," she said.
Brown-Guillory has the help of assistant director Tora Cureton, who is a second-year master's student in English and is also her graduate assistant.
"It's obvious she (Brown-Guillory) loves her work," said Cureton. "And she brings a lot of enthusiasm out in everyone else." Kimberly Davis, a junior English major, said about Brown-Guillory, "She brings a lot of vibrance, a lot of life. She pushes us so hard because she loves what she does. You can't help but emanate some of the feelings she gives off."
All of the actresses are, or have been, students of Brown-Guillory.
It could be intimidating when your first performance is for your professor, who also wrote the play. But Brown-Guillory said, "Everyone here is so free. They want to do well for themselves, but they also want to do well for me."
The work load for the students can get intense, with memorizing scripts and rehearsing nearly 40 hours a week.
"It's rough," said Wadley,
"but I'm pretty tough. I think I can take it."