Senior One-Acts bring an exciting way for senior actors to switch roles for their final production and really feel the stress of putting on and directing a show.
This year there are only two seniors taking part in this new experience. To even have a chance to be chosen as one of the directors you need to have taken Actors Studio 1, Actors Studio 2, Tech Theater and do a lot of work during the summer to prepare for the show. These intense prerequisites have swayed people away from taking part in Senior One-Acts.
Senior Emily Kang is having romantic comedy “Mandy Dear” brought to life after months of preparation.
“Being the director, it’s still a fun experience but it’s also way more work,” Kang said. “I not only have to run the rehearsals and coach the actors, but I also need to do most of the tech stuff myself.”
Kang has acted in one-acts the last three years but directing one is causing a lot more stress and hard work than acting.
“At the end of the day, the work is all worth it because I love watching my cast grow and the show come together,” Kang said. “It’s definitely a super rewarding experience.”
“Mandy Dear” is about a journalist named Molly who writes an advice column, and when she receives a letter from someone she assumes is her ex-boyfriend she responds with knowingly bad advice. She later finds out that the author of the letter was actually a man named Bryan who followed Molly’s advice and got broken up with because of it. The story follows Bryan confronting Molly and the two getting to know each other.
“We were so lucky to have so many talented people audition,” Kang said. “It was all about finding chemistry, not about whether or not someone’s ‘good.’”
She and the other director senior Riley Cockerham held auditions after school one day and had the participants perform “cold reads,” where they were put in groups, handed scripts that they had never seen, and given five minutes to rehearse and perform it for the directors. The directors would then move around the group and look for chemistry between different people to decide who to pick.
“I really just relied on my gut for this part, and whoever made me “feel” the show during their readings,” Cockerham said.
Cockerham has never acted in a one-act before so she really had nothing to base her directing and casting off of. It was a completely new experience for her, but she felt comfortable because of assistance from drama teacher Nicole Voss.
“I think I thought that I would just be able to be a good director naturally… but that is not the case,” Cockerham said. “Having always been an actor, it has been really hard getting on the other side of a show and trying to make a show rather than just perform it.”
Cockerham’s one-act is called “Lila on the Wall,” and is about a reporter who is following a story about women who were on the verge of suicide and then saw the face of Jesus. The play follows the reporter, Lila, and her camera man, Carl, as these religious women go on tour and Carl tries to bring faith back into Lila’s life.
“One of the big themes in the show is finding the essence of living despite all the pain we experience, and I think, especially at this time in our world, that everyone needs to be reminded of that,” Cockerham said.
Senior One-Acts will be performed April 12 during the day and the following night at 7 for $5.