‘Summer Sitcom’ productions to be screened

Summer Production Workshop, also known as ‘Summer Sitcom’ will be screened on Sunday at 5 p.m. in the Vosloh Forum and will be open to all PCC students and faculty.

The production took place during the past summer intercession and involved students acting out scripts from different sitcoms while being filmed by three cameras placed in different angles.

The workshop has been taking place since the late 90s, according to Will Ahrens, a theater instructor whose work has been shown in various film festivals.

Its purpose was to give students “… a unique opportunity to work in a multi-camera set up at a college level,” said Ahrens, who is also a director of the production.

“The three cameras were used as the three eyes in sitcom,” he said. “The audience only sees what the camera sees.”

Ahrens worked side by side with two other instructors, Duke Stroud and Whitney Rydbeck.

The class was divided into three groups and each director was in charge of directing a different group with about 10 to 12 students in each.

The scripts that were used in the production were from two NBC sitcoms, ‘Friends’ and ‘Cheers.’

Each of the three groups had to act out and film both of the scripts. This means that there are three different versions of each show, making a total of six different versions.

Nick Yaspremski, undecided, a student who participated in the production, says that the work he did on ‘Summer Sitcom’ was “… very accurate to how real sitcoms are made.”

This weekend the students of the production will be required to screen all six versions. This will give them the chance to see “… a different actor in the same role and how that actor will play it differently,” said Ahrens.

One student who worked on ‘Summer Sitcom,’ Magaham Wehbe, undecided, said, “It was a great experience. I had to learn the difference between acting on a stage and acting in front of a camera.”

The overall purpose of ‘Summer Sitcom’ was for the students to gain experience and to teach them how sitcoms work.

“Now, they will all understand how it works when they set foot onto a real set,” Ahrens said.