The curtain closes, the audience cheers and eventually everyone goes home after a night at the theater, but for this weekend’s upcoming one act plays, it has been a process that started at the beginning of the year.
“It has a preliminary, kind of preparation course, that goes with it,” theatre professor Britton Lynn said. “Often times the process of figuring out what show to do and the process of figuring out what production problems the show might have and how to solve those problems takes a little bit more time than one semester allows.”
The one act plays serve as a junior-level project for theatre majors. Senior Alli Lee is directing the one act “Relative Strangers” and said it gives students the opportunity to step out of their comfort zones and manage all the aspects that go into making a show come to life.
“Basically you direct it,” Lee said. “You’re in charge of casting and getting together the technical elements like set, light and costumes. You have to sort of coordinate all of that. You don’t have to do it all yourself, but you have to communicate with people what you want your show to look like.”
Last semester, all the directors chose three options for potential one acts they wanted to direct. Theatre faculty then decided from those three options which one acts would be performed.
“I have an extensive background in theatre,” junior Holly Cannon, who is directing the one act “The Seussification of Romeo and Juliet,” said. “I knew where my strengths were, and I’ve helped and been in a few different one acts as a student, so I knew I wanted to do a specific type of show, so I picked comedies.”
After scripts are chosen and approvals are given, directors start bringing it all together. The beginning of the spring semester was marked by the casting call, which was an event by itself. Due to there being so many one acts, directors had to negotiate who they wanted.
“We sat down, all seven directors and Lynn, and sort of divvied people up, which is really interesting,” Lee said. “There’s a lot of compromise when there’s seven shows trying to coordinate that many different directors trying to do different things.”
As soon as casts were set, rehearsals began. However, even this was not without its difficulties.
“You try and rehearse as much as you can, but with Spring Sing you really couldn’t do anything and that (took place) right before tech week,” Cannon said. “Tech week is really the only time when you have your lights and your sound and your costumes and you’re putting everything all together and it’s usually a little bit hectic then.”
Most of the one acts have a small cast, and even planning around schedules for rehearsal with a small number can be challenging. However, with small casts, it ends up adding a unique element to the rehearsal process.
“When you have a small cast, you rely on each other a lot,” sophomore Penny Turpin, who is acting in “Seussification,” said. “Everybody carries a huge part of the show. Especially for this show, “Seussification” is a very company styled play. There’s no lead, everybody is a lead, everybody is a supporting character. The friendships and the chemistry that you develop with your stage partners, in that small of a cast, the bonds are really what make it and it’s what makes our show strong.”
Despite challenges that directors face throughout this process, the overarching goal is achieved.
“The thing that is the most rewarding to see is the directors come through this process,” Lynn said. “They are much more in tune, after having gone through the process, with what it means to work with a group of people to accomplish a goal.”
Students can attend one acts tonight and tomorrow night at 6 p.m. for $5.
