Can you imagine the beloved Peanuts gang all grown up? On the weekend of December 3 Scotch’n’Soda presented Dog Sees God, a play that portrays our childhood favorites Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang as confused and disturbed teenagers. The show was incredible, to say the least. It touched the audience on issues such as identity, sexual orientation, drug use, eating disorders and teen violence. Much laughter, tears and even gasps were audible from the audience. I interviewed director Raz Golden for a feel of the play’s creative process and to hear about his reaction to the show’s success.
After reading the program I was surprised to see that a freshman directed the show. Raz is an International Relations and Politics major but has enough theater background to make him qualified for the position. “I have been involved in theater, both onstage and off, since middle school,” Raz said. He was very involved in his high school’s drama program in New York City. Some of his notable works include stage managing the musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, playing Demetrius in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and playing Uncle Ernie in The Who’s Tommy. Raz also directed prior to this experience at Carnegie Mellon, such as scenes from Closer and The Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged.
With this impressive resume it is no longer a surprise that, as a freshman, Raz scored the director position on Scotch’n’Soda’s December show. “I presented my vision to the Scotch’n’Soda Board of Directors and was picked,” Raz said. But out of all plays in the world, why did Raz want to direct this one? “Dog Sees God is a show that I have held dear since I saw it a few years ago,” said Raz. “It affected me so deeply that I knew that, if given the chance, I would want to pass on that feeling to others.” Raz definitely got the chance to pass along an emotional play to fellow college students. “Directors want their audience to feel the emotion and identify with the characters on stage, but if all my production produced was a sobbing audience, then I hadn’t stayed true to all aspects of the play,” Raz said. He successfully balanced humor and sadness within Dog Sees God and did a fantastic job of allowing the audience to connect with the characters.
Dog Sees God was a successful production but it was not an easy project to complete. “Directing a show can be very difficult for so many reasons,” Raz said. Some issues that worried him included how the older cast and crewmembers would respond to a freshman director, the balance of artistic control, and thinking on his feet at all times. When I asked Raz for one of his favorite decisions he made for the play, he said CB’s sister’s costume. “Each of her costumes was black and turquoise and as the play progressed her costumes went from all black with a bit of turquoise to all turquoise with a bit of black to represent the character coming into her own identity,” he said. This decision demonstrates Raz’s creative genius throughout the play.
Regarding the actors’ performances Raz said, “I couldn’t have asked for a better debut as a theater artist in CMU.” He expressed great pride in his cast and crew for accomplishing so much so fantastically.
The last thing that Raz had to say was, “Thank you everyone for coming to see the play. I couldn’t have done this show without the production staff and the rest of Scotch’n’Soda, a theater group that I am happy to be a part of!”
Don’t miss Sctoch’n’Soda’s February show, Eurydice, and look out for Raz’s future works.