Two USC alumni join Elysium Conservatory Theatre

From the stage of the Bing Theatre, two USC alumni, Charlotte Spangler and Sahil Kaur, found themselves at the Elysium Conservatory Theatre. Spangler, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree  in theatre in 2014, and Kaur, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree  in communication in 2016, had never met until 2017,  when Kaur joined the conservatory and took one of Spangler’s improv classes.

This winter, the alumni will cross paths in the production of Three Sisters, where Spangler will portray the lead character Olga and Kaur will serve as her understudy.

The Elysium Conservatory, located in San Pedro, Calif., is a multidisciplinary organization that opened in 2011. Its unique venue has no set stage or audience seating area, allowing audience members to become part of the theatrical experience.

“Interacting with the audience in this way is why I love theater — it’s always different every night and you have to work off what is in front of you,” Spangler said. “Depending on where the audience sits, or how they react, you have to improvise to keep moving the story forward.”

The road to performing with Elysium was winding for both Kaur and Spangler. Spangler joined the conservatory after experiencing problems with auditions in Los Angeles.

“So many projects I see or audition for in L.A. are just not something I really want to be a part of,” Sprangler said. “The roles are sexist or poorly written or just don’t tell a story that I want to tell.”

Kaur transferred to USC as a sophomore majoring in biological sciences before deciding to fully pursue filmmaking and acting her junior year. She returned to theater this past summer when she auditioned for the conservatory’s production.  

“I had a pretty toxic relationship with theater in high school and I wanted to overcome adolescent fears and anxieties and just get back into it for the love of doing it,” Kaur said. “When I got an audition for the program, I told myself to just have fun with it and see what happens.”

Since joining the conservatory, Spangler has played the Nurse in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.She and Kaur both worked on Dark of the Moon over the summer.

“Being the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet was sort of a dream role that I had a blast playing, and it let me explore more of the dramatic side,” Spangler said. “But over the summer, working on Dark of the Moon, I got to play an Appalachian mom with a strong [accent] and a passion for drinking corn liquor, which was just super fun.”

Now the two are both working on the theater’s upcoming show, Three Sisters, Spangler as the character Olga and Kaur as her understudy.

Three Sisters  tells the story about how three sisters bring their slow, small Russian town together, told over the course of five years. The story was written by Anton Chekhov at the turn of the 20th century and is a classical Russian play that the Elysium Conservatory contemporized to incorporate new music and movement pieces. The rendition features new and diverse female roles, following the emotional and physical growth of the sisters over the course of the story.

“I definitely found that the existential queries our characters grapple with in this place, in this span of five years, is comparable to the worries we find in our lives at this moment,” Kaur said.

Three Sisters will be shown in two parts, one night with Acts 1 and 2 and another with Acts 3 and 4. The Elysium cast will bring the sisters’ story to life from Nov. 18 to Dec. 16.

“It’s a really honest, truthful piece of theater that doesn’t hide from the raw emotions of the human experience,” Sprangler said.