By Declan McDaniels/Orange County Tribune

  The emotion and excitement brought out through theater is unlike many endeavors. Acting and creating this form of visual art is a stimulating passion that is only fully understood once engrossed in the environment. Few people have had a bigger impact in the world of area theater than Thomas Bradac, a Garden Grove resident who recently retired from his job as a professor at Chapman University in Orange.

Bradac’s retirement from Chapman comes 10 years after his retirement from Shakespeare Orange County, where he led the company as an artistic director for 34 years. While Bradac has found substantial success in his career, his love for theater started in high school when his first ever play experience involved him acting in it.

“I was in a play before I actually saw one,” Bradac said. “I had never seen a play, and I was cast in a play in high school. People applauded at the end, and I went, ‘wow, this is kind of cool.’”

Bradac felt a sense of accomplishment and excitement from this experience, and this feeling stuck with him as he continued on his path.

  He said, “The thing that I got off on most was seeing the audience sit in the theater listening to a story told by professionals on stage, and that interaction between the actors and the audience, kind of examining their own humanity, became important to me.”

From there, Bradac began setting himself up to become an actor, but he slowly started to realize that despite his enjoyment, it wasn’t the life he wanted to lead. So, Bradac got into producing and directing, and ended up re-opening the historic Gem Theater on Main Street in Garden Grove, and then the Festival Amphitheater (now called the Garden AMP) in 1981.

“I was involved in the beginnings of both of those theaters in Garden Grove, and I had a professional company going there for almost 13 years, and then at that point, I was invited to join the faculty at Chapman in about 1990,” Bradac said.

One of Bradac’s longtime associates, Michael Nehring, had been working in the theater department at Chapman since 1982, and Nehring was very grateful that Bradac made the decision to become a professor.

“I loved it so much that I constantly tried to get better and better and better. And Tom gives you the chance to do that. He loves it so much that he gives you a place to pour your love into it, and it’s inspirational,” Nehring said. “I became a leading Shakesperian actor because of the opportunities that Tom Bradac gave me.”

Once at Chapman, Bradac’s areas of expertise were teaching acting, Shakespeare, and directing. Bradac feels that he gained a lot from his experience as a professor at Chapman, and that while the task is heavy, he gets satisfaction out of seeing his students succeed

“It’s certainly daunting on one hand, but when you see the light go on, or you see somebody do something that you know they can do when they execute it, it is really a turn on,” Bradac said.

At Chapman, Bradac continued to direct and produce plays for his students. After years of practice and preparation, Bradac has a good sense of what it takes to get a play up off the ground.

“It’s like building a house,” Bradac said. “You have to have a foundation, which generally is your play. You have to create a framework, out of which the building can stand, and it is like carpentry in a way, artistic carpentry. It’s trying to make all of the joints and bevels fit together in such a way that it’s cohesive and aesthetically pleasing and communicates.”

Not only does Bradac aspire to make his plays cohesive and entertaining, but he also aims to provoke thought and make an impact on both the viewers and those in the cast. Bradac has found that Shakespeare delves into social commentary, something that he looks up to.

“When I was in college as an undergraduate, I was socially involved, as many students are today, with many of the problems within our global environment. I started doing politically active and socially conscious theater to make a point to communicate to an audience,” Bradac said. “I found in Shakespeare the same themes and ideas of a kind of universal humanity that I was able to connect with and try to communicate that to an audience, and that was commercially viable, that people would come and see. The largest theaters in the North American continent are Shakespeare theaters.”

Nehring sees Bradac’s passion for Shakespeare as a gift for those able to experience it, especially all of his students at Chapman.

“His generosity of heart in Shakespearean production is something that I wish everybody could experience, and lucky students at Chapman got to experience it in the classroom and also on stage working with him,” Nehring said.

Bradac is not at all opposed to the idea of doing a show solely for the fun of it, but he finds purpose in creating something that is meaningful on a deeper level.

“I think doing a show to have fun is ok, but I think it has to have a purpose, and an idea that you’re trying to communicate,” Bradas said, “The whole reason for doing theater, or any art form, is to communicate to an audience a point of view, and that point of view becomes essential to who you are as a human being.”

With passion and dedication to the integrity of his work, Bradac has influenced the lives of both his viewers and the people he has worked with and mentored. Through his job as a professor and his role in theaters across Orange County, Bradac has left a positive mark that will be remembered by countless individuals who crossed his path.