Written, Directed, and Edited by Rick Pulos
Featuring: Darby Kingman, Jay Figueroa, and Lee Ann Littrell with TTC Community
Members
Original music by Bran Kempf
Gimbal Operator: KAAN (Texas A&M student)
Production Assistants: Bryan Adams & Bryan Rodarte
Episode: Community with Heart
Once Upon a Time…in Community Theatre is an episodic documentary about The Theatre Company, a community theatre in Texas. The folks that come to TTC do it for their love of theatre and to build community. Anyone who walks through the doors of the theatre will be greeted with a deep feeling of belonging. “Community with Heart” is an uplifting episode that shows the power and beauty of community theatre. To learn more about The Theatre Company visit www.theatrecompany.com.
Join us for the world premiere of Camelton: The Journey from Canarsie to Qatar and Back Again! at the Polaris North Studio in Manhattan. Musical theatre writer Stephen Cole tells his hilarious story of writing a musical for the Emir of Qatar. Picture this! Two Brooklyn Jews, some Middle Eastern producers, flying carpets, Croatian acrobats, Russian ballet dancers, an Italian director, the desert, camels (a lot of camels!) and, of course, music. You will laugh and you will cry (from laughing) in this outrageous, once-in-a-lifetime, unbelievable-but-true tale of how Stephen and his collaborator wrote the first American Musical to premiere in the Middle East. Directed by Rick Pulos.
For tickets: rick@theatrcompany.com
This is a 30 second commercial I created to advertise The Sound of Music.
Drone operation: Leo Garza
Collaborating with TTC is always fun but this project holds an especially important place in my heart because I was able to work with one of my students from Texas A&M.
A short documentary about electronic artist Zoe Nowak and her weeks long visit to Texas A & M University. This video was made collaboratively with the Media & Gaming Lab and Texas A &M Performance Studies Department. Pulos, R., Connor, W. K., & Lopez, J. (2024).
TTC Teaches was created by Rick Pulos in January 2024 to offer low-cost workshops to the Bryan-College Station Texas community in all aspect of theatre.
Jordan attended our Musical Theatre Self-Tape workshop in spring 2025. Participants walked away with a video for their reels.
I've been creating social media trailers for The Theatre Company since 2023. Depending on the limitations of our contracts, they can range in length from 30 seconds to 90 seconds. I film the final dress rehearsal of shows and then edit together the video for publication to our social media accounts.
I led a cast, crew, and orchestra of over 40 Bryan-College Station community members in this production of 1776: The Musical. I also designed the projections for the show. I cast the show non-traditionally and I created projections that emphasized the shortcomings of the founding of the United States.
I created this celebration of The Theatre Company of BCS that we used at our annual season reveal party to inspire folks to donate to the company and buy season tickets. Except for Cinderella and 1776 (captured by Bryan Adams) the videography and editing work was done by me. You might capture a glimpse of me performing as Sheldon in The Prom!
This is an advertisement I shot and edited for a workshop I ran as part of TTC Teaches, a series of low-cost workshops offered through The Theatre Company of Bryan-College Station. As the program coordinator for TTC Teaches, I develop, manage, market, and run the workshops. We've offered workshops in sewing, singing, how to audition (for kids and adult versions), and dancing.
I collaborated with the projection designer for The Prom. Using Q-Lab and Adobe CS, I mapped the designer's work onto our set.
I conceptualized the Kit Kat Club as if it were a modern venue with projection capabilities. I designed a false proscenium for the projection surface to frame the stage:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lnDw2heR_pA_OYQX4-wk-OfkAjuwu70O/view?usp=share_link.
I also constructed it myself. The results brought our audiences on an unexpected visual journey.
Design work was created with Adobe Creative Suite and projection mapping and programming was don in Q-Lab.
This is a social media trailer I created to promote the show.
Created for Dr. Connor's faculty showcase in the College of Performance, Visualization, & Fine Arts.
Videography: Rick Pulos
I designed this projection and audio to go along with a dazzling lighting design by Beth Lowry to showcase the Theatre Company's new projector and lighting equipment. The result was an assault on the senses that impressed and entertained the audience at The Theatre Company's annual Season Reveal Party. Using stock footage and found footage, the visuals take the audience on a journey of movement, sound, and light.
I performed this at Texas A&M's "Coming Out Monologues" in spring 2022. The event allowed students, faculty, and staff to share their stories via performances/poetry readings. What was eye-opening about this event was how coming out is still challenging on so many levels. Sadly, under the current political climate, the "Coming Out Monologues" event is no longer allowed in the state of Texas.
I conducted this interview as well as shot and edited it for use at the Theatre Company's annual Preview Party to raise money for the community theatre
(Presented at the National Communication Association's 2020 convention as a staged reading)
This multimedia performance explores race, ethnicity, and culture through the personal stories and artifacts of the author as he navigated life up through applying to college in 1992. At that time affirmative action, particularly in his home state of California, was a well-known part of the admissions process at major universities; a few years later prop 209 would end affirmative action in education in California. At the core of the piece are a few questions: what box should I check? Do I count as Latinx? Am I a diversity recruit? Am I too white? Does family history count? Am I privileged one way but not another? Because of unknowns perpetuated by family legend, the author in his later years conducted an ancestry.com DNA test which he uses to great effect along with familial artifacts that illuminate the dilemma he faced while applying to college. This topic is salient today considering the Trump administration’s recent actions against race conscious admissions.
A “gay purge” has swept Chechnya, an Islamic republic of Russia, and the police are rounding up men to interrogate and torture. An American visiting the beautiful mosques of the capital Grozny is brought in by the police and tossed in a cell. His cellmate is a Russian-American working in Chechnya to help rescue as many people as he can and move them across the border to safety. The two will embark on an unexpected journey.
What happens when a husband and wife voluntarily patrol the US-Mexico Border? George and Margaret feel they must defend the borders. Potential “illegals” are there, lurking, waiting to cross. When Margaret begins to ask too many questions, everything changes. Arizona was inspired by the real-life Minutemen Project that was a vigilante organization started in August 2004 by a group of activist citizens in the United States to monitor, count and scare away undocumented immigrants at the US-Mexico Border. Arizona was translated with care by Laureano Corces. Arizona will be directed by Rick Pulos, Ryan Rep’s artistic director, and will feature seasoned performers Zoe Bloomfield as Margaret and Pat McAndrew as George in their debut performances at the Harry Warren Theatre.
Decades Apart: Reflections of Three Gay Men is a multimedia theatrical performance that captures significant moments in the lives of three gay American men from different eras and cities. Bob is a carefree soul who lives in 1970s San Francisco and finds sex and love closely intertwined. Patrick, a gay Republican, tries to survive 1980s New York City but finds himself hopelessly lost. Danny is a wild club kid who parties and pays hard for it in 1990s Los Angeles. Decades Apart reflects back on the social and political issues that shaped the worldview of these men.
Performed in New York City, Los Angles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Long Island and New Haven between 2009 and 2017.
See a picture of a recent graduate student production at Texas A&M Corpus Christi in 2019 below!
Chicago Stage Style raves that Decades Apart demonstrates “real innovation[s] in gay theatre” and that the text is “…a provocative and thought provoking picture of same-sex proclivities and issues. If the response to Pulos' World Premiere was any indication, this is a work that can really get blood boiling out there, and isn't that one of the benchmarks of great theatre?”
See the trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdNJWctfl18&t=3s
Relativity
Another Woman's Baby
A Late Snow
Singing for the Boys
Kong by Pamela Sneed
You Are Confused
Brooklyn - A Work in Progress
George Dandin or The Deceived Husband
No Exit
The African Company Presents Richard III
America Ain’t Ready
Introducing Harry Warren-The Tin Pan Alley Years
Director Marcus Nealy (center) staged a performance of Decades Apart and won the Stratford-upon-Avon Award for Outstanding 10-Minute Play. From left to right Danny (1990s character), Bob (1970s character), Patrick (1980s character) and Danny (1990s character). Bravo!