Students learn to direct, one act at a time
There’s relief for anyone who loves theater but can never remember what happened in the last act.
Each year the USU theatre department puts on evenings of one-act plays. More than 30 students will participate in this year’s presentation, but what makes this event so different from other performances is the students are also the directors.
Chris Tingey, a senior majoring in English, has started preparing for the event since the beginning of last semester. From picking out the plays to casting, rehearsing to final performance, it’s all done by the student directors, he said.
During Fall Semester, Tingey and the other directors said an important step of getting the needed skills was taking a few directing classes, which helped them learn what it takes to make the plays come together.
“It has been a busy semester. I don’t think I could have made it without the help and support of the actors and my wife,” Tingey said.
One challenge the student directors face is the responsibility to analyze the play and then convey what they see in their mind to the actors, said Hilary Frasier Rhees, a senior majoring in performance. It is her first time directing for the plays. As a newcomer to play directing, she wants to make sure her opinion doesn’t dictate the stage but allow the actors to share ideas.
Being a director doesn’t come without its own set of frustrations, especially for these first-timers. They said the most frustrating thing they have to deal with is actors and their busy lives, making the task of producing a stage-worthy play harder than expected.
“It’s been harder than I realized coordinating schedules,” Rhees said.
Acting under a peer can be difficult for some of the students, but Allyson Carranza, a sophomore majoring in theatre performance, said she enjoys the different directing perspective.
“I feel more comfortable working with [the student director] because he listens to our ideas and is more approachable,” she said. Carranza, who plays a bear in “Deut for Bear and Dog,” said these plays are great for gaining more experience on the stage.
According to Tingey, the turnout for these plays is usually very good for both those that want to be on stage and those who like to watch the stage. Auditions for the plays are open to anyone, performance major not. The theatre department just wants students to come out and have fun, Tingey said.
The plays will be held in the “Black Box,” Room 224 in the Fine Arts Building. A total of nine one-act plays will be performed over three evenings: each night will feature three of the nine.
Each of the directors have two showings of their play. The event started Thursday, Jan. 18, and will run until Saturday. They will start again Thursday, Jan. 25, and run until Saturday, Jan. 27. The shows start at 7:30 p.m., a half hour after the doors open, and they last about 60 minutes.
-dwkoecher@cc.usu.edu