Meet our Make a Difference (M.A.D.) Fellows

Make a Difference > Meet our M.A.D. Fellows - Quinci Waller, Louisa Mascuch, Emma Levine, Allison Sugabo, Justine Law

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Shotgun Players' Make a Difference program is generously supported by a grant from the Sam Mazza Foundation.

Louisa Mascuch

What was your first Shotgun Players experience?

When I was really young, like six or seven, my family and I started going to the plays in John Hinkel Park every summer. So we’ve been going for… I’ve probably seen five or six of them. We would bring food and all sit on the cement steps. I remember there were so many loud, crazy things happening in all of the plays, and that’s when I really fell in love with Shotgun. It wasn’t until (actually) fairly recently that I have seen a Shotgun play at Ashby Stage. I really got into it by seeing them perform at John Hinkel Park.

What made you want to be a MAD fellow?

I really got into doing costumes last semester at my school. (I go to Barnard College in New York City). And I took a costume design class, and I really really loved it. I knew that I wanted to be at home in Berkeley for the summer, and I started thinking about the ways that I could try and do costume design while I was in Berkeley. I started emailing the theaters I was familiar with in the Bay Area. And Shotgun was the top of my list because I knew that I loved it so much, and I live in this neighborhood—only like four blocks away. And, so, I really wanted to be connected to something that is doing incredible work and is in my own community.

What is your favorite Shotgun play and why?

My favorite Shotgun play that I remember going to see was Cyrano de Bergerac, which is one of the early ones. That was really incredible, and I think mildly disturbing for me as a young child. I still remember some of the lines. Dave Maier was in it that one, and I knew him from doing drama camps. So it was really incredible to see one of my teachers performing. That was a really wild experience.

What knowledge do you hope to gain from your fellowship?

I think that this is a really exciting opportunity for me to get to work with a costume designer, Katie Nowacki, who does work all over the Bay Area. It’s been really valuable to see how she works and what her process is for choosing the costumes, shopping, and preparing the costumes before the show. I worked on a film before doing costumes. So the rhythm and the pacing of theater is completely different, and I’m learning a lot.

What is the one play that you would love for Shotgun to produce?

For my final project in my costume design class, I worked on costumes for Venus by Suzan Lori-Parks, and it was an incredible play and really challenging to design costumes for because I think there so much complexity in how we handle issues of race and body. I would really love to see how Shotgun would take on that challenge.

Why theater?

So many reasons… I think that ever since I was little, I’ve loved going to plays and being in plays. We had a really amazing drama program at my elementary school, Malcolm X, which is two blocks away from Shotgun. As a student there, I was onstage in plays before I even got the chance to even be in the audience. And then I loved being in the audience and feeling so connected with what was happening onstage because I knew that experience.

Can you tell us one fun fact about you?

I was a modern dancer for a while, and I quit. But now I’m thinking about going back to it. So, stay tuned for that.