Theatre TCU plans to open this semester with Randy Jackson-Alvarenga’s “Stained Glass.”

Theatre TCU has developed a reputation for pushing the limits of the talented students that audition for its productions, and this semester will be no exception.

What was your inspiration for the play?

When I was sitting down to write the outline for “Stained Glass,” I tried to think long and hard about what kind of story I wanted to tell. The story of the play actually came from a free writing exercise that I read in a playwriting book. The idea is to close your eyes and to let your mind wander until you come to an image. From that image you write a brief description of the scene, who’s in it, what you think is going on. And from that description, you write a scene. For me the image was of a boy kneeling and praying in front of a stained glass window.

Although the story that came from the play is completely fictional, the location of the play is closely modeled after my time in boarding school. I thought back to my experience, and how living at a school provided a lot of unique challenges for me, leading to my own feelings of loneliness and ultimately of self-discovery. I thought that setting the play in this context would provide a unique place for the story of “Stained Glass” to unfold.

So basically I took a writing example from a playwriting book and coupled that with a place that I thought would heighten the play dramatically and thus “Stained Glass” was born. The play is about how one young man’s struggle to accept himself ultimately destroys himself and hurts those who care about him.

What was the motivation behind the play?

The motivation behind writing this play came from the fact that I wish to be a playwright. I attended the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C., as a literary media major. And while there I became interested in playwrighting after taking a playwriting course and winning a playwriting contest in my junior year of high school. Since that time I have been at TCU studying theater and playwriting under Dr. T.J. Walsh in the theatre department, with the intention of going on to graduate school to get my MFA in playwriting. For applications I needed to have a full-length play to submit for most programs, so during my junior year in college I sat down and began reading playwriting textbooks that I had bought for fun and began writing the play that would eventually turn into “Stained Glass.”

Writing this play was way more than I ever could have expected because since it was my first full-length. It presented me with a lot of unique problems, like how to create a story that could last for two acts. But Dr. Walsh and the extracurricular study that I did ended up helping me concur many of those initial problems.

When is the play set?

The play’s setting is somewhere between today and maybe 10 to 20 years ago. I think our current day and age many of the problems of the play would not usually be able to persist. But I wrote a play like this because I think we still have work to do… So I intentionally didn’t give the play a definitive time period because I think it still, unfortunately, has something that it can teach us.

What are you looking for from the reaction of the audience?

Well first I want people to be critical. The work is by no means done. I am still moving things and trying to find the story that it will be. So I want to hear what people like and don’t like so that I can work towards making it better. Second I want to see the audience’s reaction to the story. Do they believe it? Is it entertaining? That is the next part of the challenge of being a playwright. To me I have only heard these voices on the page. Just like all the audience members, come performance night I will learn just as much about the play as they will. I think that’s what I secretly like about writing for the stage.

What is your next project?

Well right now I am in this weird place called trying to figure out what I’m doing after graduation. This means that I am applying to grad schools. But because I spent last semester studying theater in Japan, I missed some deadlines so I can only apply to a few programs this year. If I don’t get in, then I am also looking at maybe spending a year to go back to Japan to improve my language skills and to study Japanese theater some more before I try to apply to more programs next year.

Where do you see yourself five years from now?

In five years I will be 27, and I hope I will have graduated with my MFA in playwriting. Like all playwrights my number one goal is to have a full-staged production of my work done at a professional theatre. That would be pretty awesome. But I’d also like to have a job teaching theater at a university or using my writing skills for a job. Basically, I hope that by the time I’m 27 years old I can have a career that is beginning to take shape.

“Stained Glass”
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Where: Hays Theatre in the TCU Walsh Center
Admission: Free