Advanced directing students prepare for upcoming One Act plays
Posted by The Skyliner on February 25th, 2009Kyra Alexander
Staff Writer
On Wednesday, Feb. 18 the One Act play auditions were held.
Four one act plays will be performed March 20 at 7:30 p.m. and on March 21 at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Senior theatre majors Katy Beth Cassell and Lindsay Ross, along with junior theatre majors Karla Neves and Corie Savage, are the directors of the four plays.
The advanced directing class makes this a requirement for seniors to direct a one act.
These plays will be performed in Turner Chapel.
The audience is on the stage with the actors in a setting called a thrust stage. In a thrust stage the audience members are on three sides of the set. They are on the same level as the actors and see it from all sides.
Ross found her play on oneactplays.com. She wanted to find a play that had a small cast and was a comedy. She finally found the perfect script, “He Said and She Said” by Alice Gerstenburg.
“I don’t want to give anything away,” Ross said, “but it’s all about rumors and gossip.”
She wants to put this comedy to life. She had 12-15 people audition for her play on Wednesday. She also knew that they would have to pull from non-theatre majors. They had to produce a good monologue or they were given a script, which no one was directing, to get an objective of what they could do.
“To decide who I wanted I had to look at a lot of factors. They couldn’t be afraid to be big and exaggerate and couldn’t be soft spoken or shy,” Ross said. She is very excited about her cast she has chosen and is ready for it to start.
Neves is choosing to direct “Senseless” written by Daniel Jordan, a graduate of North Greenville.
She really loved the quick comedy and said it has been so much fun to direct. Neves had to start her auditions early because it was a touring play.
When the auditions were held they all had to have monologues memorized. She had 12 people audition and had seven or eight callbacks to read again from the actual script. In the end she chose five of the people to come on the tour with her.
“The touring has been great and I’m excited about directing and them performing it at the One Act Play Festival,” Neves said. They have changed a few things in the blocking, redirecting the movements on stage, because of the stage being so different due to the thrust environment.
“I’m very excited about seeing it all put together, all four of them. Everyone should come,” Neves concluded.