HOOLIGAN Theatre Company is “Putting It Together” this fall.

The student-run theater group is taking the stage with its first mainstage show of the season, presenting “Sunday in the Park with George” from Dec. 8-10 in UCLA’s Little Theater. Composed by Stephen Sondheim, the 1984 musical follows the fictionalized life of Impressionist Georges Seurat and his struggle to balance his art and reality. Second-year undeclared student and vocal director Caroline Sierk said the story revolves around Seurat’s painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,” depicting his turbulent relationships with each individual on the canvas.

“The show is a historical fiction piece, telling the story of how Seurat made the painting and his relationships, specifically with … Dot and their long-term love affair romance that is so deeply complicated, just like Seurat’s relationship with his art,” Seirk said. “It’s a love triangle between his art and the real love of his life.”

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HOOLIGAN strives to be an educational theater organization, morphing into an outlet for theater-lovers of all backgrounds, said second-year molecular, cell and developmental biology student Alyssa Kurt, who plays Dot. The organization blends passion with professionalism, Kurt said, putting on shows across campus to spread the joy of theater. The show resonates with HOOLIGAN’s vision, Kurt said – as Seurat grapples with the “art of making art,” a phrase that reflects the struggles of pursuing an artistic living. In lieu of Sondheim’s recent death, the piece has also become more significant in the Broadway community, Sierk said.

During the cast and crew’s interview with Terry Hughes, the director of the musical’s video production and a close friend of Sondheim, Hughes spoke of how Sondheim projected his own thoughts and emotions onto Seurat’s character, Sierk said. Furthermore, Hughes alluded to Sondheim’s emphasis on art education, claiming that the late composer would be proud of HOOLIGAN’s endeavors – a full circle moment that Kurt said deeply impacted the students. Hence, the musical’s artistic core and educational ideology seemed fitting for a group of people driven by the appreciation of art, Kurt said. Seurat’s thirst for art strikes true in each generation, still applying to today’s artists, Sierk said.

“This is such a heart-wrenching musical – its themes range from why we do art to why we love to why we live … and what we live for,” Sierk said. “It’s just been such fun putting it together with people who live for art in the same way that I do, the same way that Georges Seurat does in the show, the same way that Sondheim did.”

Sondheim’s music is known to be extremely individualistic, Seirk said, as each note is written with intention and is tailored to the character it soundtracks. A fascinating facet of this musical’s score is its inherent harmony with the storyline, she said, notably the repetitive staccato eighth-note rhythm. This tone of short, pointed beats parallels Seurat’s pointillism style – a technique of painting composed exclusively of tiny dots, Sierk said. The music is meant to evoke the imagery of Seurat rapidly dabbing his canvas, thus musically bringing his painting style to life, she added.

Another aspect of Seurat’s artistic approach was his play on the science of color, Sierk said. Rather than mixing colors on a palette like most other Impressionist painters, Kurt said Seurat placed contrastingly colored dots beside each other and allowed them to blend in the viewer’s eye. Second-year theater student and scenic designer Joyce Hong said the lighting takes inspiration from this, mimicking the dots with distinctly colored lights that mingle on stage to produce the desired effect.

Moreover, Hong said the chosen colors draw from color theory, with each one lending itself to the show’s emotions. For instance, Hong said blue light signals despair and sadness, while yellow elicits comfort and warmth, thus allowing the audience to instantly discern the character’s feelings. As an additional nuance, the lights were filtered through stained glass as an ode to Seurat’s nearly religious practice of his art, Hong added.

Staying with the authentic depiction of Seurat’s work and lifestyle, the costumes also reflect his painting, Sierk said. As the show’s costume designer, Sierk said she strived to clothe and accessorize each cast member as close to their painted persona as possible. Furthermore, since Seurat refrained from using the color black, instead employing a cluster of dark dots to simulate shadows, Sierk said she resolved to abstain from using any black in the entire show. She added that though this costume detail will perhaps go unnoticed, it was crucial to honoring Seurat’s vision to the best of their abilities.

In his era, Seurat was largely unsuccessful due to his wildly unconventional style, Kurt said. However, she added that in time, his paintings matured to be appreciated for their genius, gaining delayed fame. Mirroring his trajectory, Kurt said Sondheim’s musical was also initially dismissed due to its experimental approach of jumping between countries and generations in a single scene. Only years later, it received its due by winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1985, Kurt said. Both Seurat and Sondheim’s brave ventures demonstrate that bending the convention often produces powerful results, she added.

“The biggest thing is that this is a very experimental musical, as is Georges Seurat’s painting,” Kurt said. “Just that idea of not following convention and … how experimental those pieces are … ended up being something so significant. I don’t think that they could have created a piece that was so powerful if they didn’t break all those conventions.”

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Despite the historical setting, Sierk said the musical’s themes still remain extremely relevant today. As an actor, Kurt said she sees her own struggles in Seurat’s internal conflicts and the all-consuming nature of an artistic livelihood. Moreover, Sierk said she connects to the theme of legacy brought out in the song “Children and Art.” Building a legacy to be remembered by is a universal human desire, Sierk said, and the musical details this in the form of children and art – both human creations that carry on the creator’s name.

“Georges Seurat’s struggle for much of the musical is that he wants to create something of his own, he wants to have a legacy that means something,” Sierk said. “I think that it truly does speak to the artistic experience. It (art) has to come from a place within you … and when you really let that guide you, that is often where the most success is found.”