by Marie Tan Kiak Li
Two students blast off to the moon in a shuttle, where a piece of paper explodes in the Jason Carpp ‘06’s face! To save Carpp, Laurie Glapa ’07 takes off her own oxygen mask to share with him and thus, saves his life. All the while both of them have stools strapped onto their heads. This is just one warm-up exercise during a rehearsal for The Man Who Couldn’t Dance.
“Weird things happen” during rehearsal according to Kyle Schmidt ’04, student director of Match Point. Quite a few of the directors agree that the process of directing the One-Acts has taken on a life of its own. Schmidt recounted rehearsals in which there were times when mistakes which ended up with Schmidt telling his actors “I don’t know what you did, or how you did it, but that’s definitely going in the play.”
Johanna Marvel ’05, one of the actors in Akhmatova said that Grinnell’s One-Act Festival allows students who would not normally participate in theatre to get a taste of what it’s like. Therefore plays that perhaps stray from the norm are produced and shown. Marvel said, “It’s a more experimental environment, whereas the rest of the Theatre Department is a little more structured, I would say. It gives us a chance to see what we, as students, can do on our own.”
Adrienne Celt ’06, also of Matchpoint, said “Our cast has, multiple times, considered dropping the whole one-act thing and pursuing such outside careers as a circus troupe or professional raquetball squad. Though none of those ideas has yet come to fruition, we’ve generally had fun anyway.” Carpp, an actor in The Man Who Couldn’t Cry, echoed the sentiment that “rehearsals have been often ridiculously silly, but nevertheless productive.”
So what are the One-Acts?
Student directed One-Acts are part of the Theatre 208 requirement for the Theatre major. According to Chris Connelly, Theatre, who is the faculty advisor for the course, the One-Acts have been around since way before his time. It is only in recent years however, that the emphasis has been on smaller class size and the hands-on approach.
According to Connelly, the students “choose a one-act play, develop a concept for it, which they then present to the class, revise that, make a written report, and as a group, cast their shows and then hold rehearsals.”
These rehearsals are limited to eight hours a week, while plays are limited to 13 pages and to a cast of five characters. Connelly said that these limitations are to ensure focus on the two core concepts of directing; working with the text and working with actors. Research for one-act plays starts the summer before fall, according to Hannah Phelps ’04, one of the student directors.
Who’s involved in it and what’s it all about?
The eight student directors this semester are Mark Bourne ‘04, Kirsten Plowman ’04, Cate Bardelson ’05, Hannah Phelps ’04, Jenny Nelson ’04, Margo Gray ’05, Jennie Mescon ’04 and Kyle J. Schmidt ’04. They chose a wide range of playwrights from David Mamet to Frank Gilroy and Romulus Lindley while content of the plays range from all lawyers going to hell, to an internal tennis game that’s going on in the world to the power of lost poetry.
The casts for the One-Acts consist of actors from the Intermediate Acting class and those selected from campus wide auditions. The student directors were required to incorporate actors of different experience levels. While that was considered a potential hurdle, most directors’ experiences proved otherwise.
Schmidt’s cast of characters will demonstrate how actors with different levels of experience fit together in a show. Jenny Rosenbaum ’07, Adrienne Celt ’06 and Omondi Kasidhi ’05 have widely different acting experiences. Schmidt pointed out also that the actors have become role models for one another, and often set the pace for each other.
Nelson, who has two relative novices in her play, said, “Oh my god, my actors are just insane!” Nonetheless, she said that she’s “seen them grow so much” and that “they don’t fall into the same little traps [that other more experienced actors do].”
On Directing
Although Connelly sits in on a couple of rehearsals, he does not communicate directly with any of the actors. Rather, he takes notes, mostly in the form of questions, which in theory, he said “the directors are free to use or ignore.”
Phelps said that a veritable and oft-heard mantra is that Connelly gives the student directors “enough rope, but hopefully not enough to hang ourselves with!”
Schmidt alluded to a level of responsibility as a director that most of them have not experienced before. There’s a lot of preparation that goes into rehearsals, and according to Schmidt, “the actors know when you don’t know what you’re doing!”
The actors themselves realize the effort that the student directors have put into this project. Gina Tarullo ’06, an actor in Akhmatova said, “[My director, Gray] has taught me so much, I have been really impressed by the power of a student director, and how seriously she has taken this role.”
The student directors act as “sounding boards for each other,” according to Nelson, “We’ll sometimes sit in directing class saying, so do you know of any other warm-ups? Because I’m out!”
According to Connelly, there is a lot of peer review that goes on, which is something that Grinnell students tend to struggle with. However, Connelly hopes that in this case, it will provide a learning experience for both the student directors and actors. The directors do not only give the actors grades, but the actors in turn will be helping grade their respective directors.
Phelps, who identifies herself as an actor by trade, found it interesting to have to “put yourself into their shoes as an actor, and then give them notes as a director.” Another main focus of the student directing experience, according to Phelps, has been to “direct your actors as you would like to be directed.”
The actors’ One-Act experiences
Tarullo revealed that Gray, as a student director, had gone to great lengths to ensure that the actors gained a full understanding of the world in which their play is set. “And I do mean ‘great lengths’” she said. “We’ve done everything from singing to acting like dogs to dancing to sitting under a stairwell for an hour.”
Nick Santiago ’05, another actor in Akhmatova said, “Though the One-Acts have been an crazy experience, it has also been a positive one.” He attributed the positive experience of students working together to create theatre to the “talented and dedicated directors.”
“In exchange for no more than eight hours a week of my time, I have enjoyed the company and knowledge of three great cast members, explored my abilities as an actor, and got to do weird stuff that only actors in a closed space could find normal.” Kasidhi said, “I have grown as a person, and that makes me feel good.”
Similarly, Glapa, said “it [the whole experience]’s been a challenge, but a lot of fun. It was a good opportunity to work intensively on a short piece ... to really dig in.” Carpp, on the other hand, enjoyed that the One-Acts presented him with the perfect opportunity to get his feet wet in a small, low-stress, and close-knit group of people. He added, “despite whatever Jenny says, Laurie and I are not insane—remember that she is the one who cast us.”
What should the audience expect?
The audience will be exposed to different directing styles because, according to Phelps, student directors this term consists of theatre majors who come from the acting, technical and directing spheres of theatre. The student directors also vary in terms of directing experience.
Unexplained lost love, lost poetry, social lies, heaven and hell, crazy swimming instructors—you’ve got it all in the One-Acts. To quote Schmidt, “If you don’t like one play wait for 15 minutes!”
Glapa admits that she’s “excited to see the other shows; there’s a pretty diverse selection of plays on both bills and everybody’s been putting forth a lot of effort.”
Watching the One-Acts should prove to be an interesting experience. After all, Nelson’s cast literally went to the moon and back again.
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