For the first time, students in City College’s theater department will be showcasing original work in front of a general audience.

Since February, students have been writing and acting short scenes that have become one performance: “Love, Santa Barbara.”

With an opening, finale and 21 acts in between, the performance brings all the different ideas together. Scenes and characters created by the students are unified under a central theme, without disrupting any of the pieces’ originality. 

The harmonizing theme between the scenes is simply, Santa Barbara.

“It’s about our relationships with each other in Santa Barbara, our relationship to the city… what we’re tired of, what we love about it,” said Richard Lonsbury, a 21-year-old actor and show playwright.

There is a recurring relationship motif throughout the scenes, which gives a double meaning to the name “Love, Santa Barbara”.

Katie Laris, director of “Love, Santa Barbara” and Production Chair of the theater department, explained that the show can be taken as either the farewell of a letter or as a description explaining what love is in Santa Barbara.

All the actors are City College students and range in age from late teens to late sixties. They were chosen through the process of both acting and writing audition. Originally, more than 40 students auditioned, but only about 23 made the cut.

“I wanted to make sure that the actors who were involved with this would be on board to not only be performers, but also be a part of creative collaboration,” said Laris.

While auditions were necessary in order to be a part of the show, it is still a class that can be found in the course catalog. Listed as Theatre Arts 141-144 “Theatre Workshop,” the amount of time actors put in establishes how many units of credit they will receive at the end of the semester.  

But despite being a registered class, it is still foremost a theater production. Students did not have the typical Monday through Friday schedule. Instead, they worked through mornings, nights, weekends and weekdays to perfect their ideas into tangible scenes.

“The minimum requirement is you have to at least be willing to give an arm,” said Lonsbury.

For the actors and play writes though, the end result was worth the work.

Before this, Lonsbury had not yet been seriously acknowledged as a writer. The class and resulting showcase has given him the opportunity to change his title from actor to playwright.

“That feeling is worth everything,” said Lonsbury.

“Love, Santa Barbara” will be showcased at 7 p.m. on April 20 and 21 in the Interim Theater located on West Campus.

 Tickets are free and the show is anticipated to fill up fast, with only 100 seats available on a first-come, first-serve basis.