From Classroom Desks to the Director's Chair

Actors performing the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tales. A visit from a high school sweetheart. A case of a cheating fiancé. A family sorting through a will and its instructions. A marriage sham to placate a mother. A man who learns his family is not what it seems. Oh, and two lobsters in a tank at a seafood restaurant discussing life and death.

All these tales will hit the stage Wednesday and Thursday. However, the one-act plays aren’t a typical high school theater production. Each one is directed from start to finish by a high school senior.

It’s a big undertaking, drama teacher Nicole Voss said. Eight students took on the challenge this year as part of a class. They view the class as a sort of culmination of their time in the drama department at Parkway Central.

“It's like the sprinkles on top,” David Schneider said. The group has taken many acting and theater classes and participated in numerous plays together. “It’s peer pressure, basically,” Aron Hendin said jokingly of her decision to take the course, which is held during the second semester of every school year.

The students meet at the end of the prior school year to learn more about the task they signed on for. Voss talks to them about how to select a play. When the class kicks off in January, the students will have already narrowed their choices, Voss said. They’ve got no time to waste and immediately begin working on an in-depth analysis of the material.

“With directing, you have to know the ins and outs of the whole show. You can’t (fake) anything, because if you do, you can’t produce it,” student director Maddie Frank said.

Then comes casting. Auditions were held in late February. Several of the directors said they were nervous about their first experience giving stage directions and other instructions to actors. “I didn’t have any idea what to say to the actors,” Hendin said. But, eventually it came naturally. Julia Levine said the whole process of analyzing the show, plus incorporating Voss’s tips, helped.

Typically, one act auditions attract a different crowd than the other plays at the school. The more relaxed atmosphere encourages students who aren’t typically active in the theater department to try it out. Director Lauren Weinstein said having somewhat less-experienced actors has actually been an asset.

“Not all of them have been involved in drama, but they have really good ideas about their characters,” she said. Lyndsay Weaver agreed.

“I had in my head what I wanted (the play) to be. The actors came in with other ideas, which got me thinking,” Weaver said.

The student directors said listening to others’ ideas and learning to rely on others are just a few of big lessons they’ve gleaned from this whole process. Trusting that everyone involved in the show cares deeply about it, too, is vital, Michael Price said.

They all agreed they’re even closer now than when they started the course. They collaborate a lot and come to each other seeking solutions to problems.

“If it’s going to happen to one of us, it’s going to happen to all of us,” Price said.

The directors said the hardest part of the whole process wasn’t the workload or the responsibility. Rather, it was the logistics. There’s limited rehearsal space in the school. Plus, they all had to plan rehearsal schedules that didn’t conflict with their cast and crew’s other activities. At times, this left them rehearsing in their homes on the weekend.

It can be a stressful process, but it’s important to let go a bit, too.

“The script is a production that wants to happen. You just have to let it,” Schneider said. He explained that much of his original blocking—the stage directions that dictate actors’ movement—won’t be seen in the performance. But that’s OK, he said.

This week, just days before the performances, most of the directors didn’t seem stressed. Sure, there were a few last-minute costume adjustments to be done—Weinstein was still on the hunt for red items to complete the lobsters’ costumes. And Frank said she was still working to cut her play a bit for it to fit into the 30-minute time limit.

But mostly, they’re just ready to see their hard work come to life. Many said they were proud and excited to see it all come together.

“It’s like reading a book and then seeing a movie,” Hendin said of the process.

If you go:

The one acts will begin at 7 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday at Parkway Central High. Four shows will be presented each night.

Wednesday’s shows:

• Home at Six, directed by David Schneider, is about a family man who comes home at 6 p.m. every day. But, one day he comes home at 4 p.m. and finds out there’s more to his family than he thought. “It’s totally action-packed. You can’t go three pages (in the script) without a surprise,” Schneider said.
• The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon, directed by Michael Price, is a play within a play that follows several actors as they try to perform the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Six actors play 19 roles in this production. “It’s quick and there’s a lot of action. It would keep me interested as an audience member,” Price said.
• Hey Neighbor!, directed by Julia Levine, is set in 1979. It follows a woman who asks her artist neighbor to pretend to be her husband to please her mother.  “The first time I read it, I was laughing out loud,” Levine said. She said the script has a lot of word play and sarcastic lines, which appeals to her sense of humor.
• In the Tank, directed by Lauren Weinstein, puts the spotlight on two lobsters as they await their fate in a tank at a seafood restaurant. The lobsters discuss the meaning of life and death. “It’s representative of my time in the drama department: it’s silly, fun, and there’s a bit of faking dead,” Weinstein said, laughing.

Thursday’s shows:

• Wanda’s Visit, directed by Maddie Frank, is about the visit of a high school flame, which Jim hopes will revive his failing marriage. “Wanda is so out there and her stories are so unexpected,” Frank said. “All the characters are just so different from each other.”
• A Day in the Life, directed by Lyndsay Weaver, follows a family as they learn about the conditions included in their late step-father’s will. Weaver said she chose it because it was “so bizarre,” and added that most of the action centers on one character who struggles through curve ball after curve ball.
• The Doctor Will See You Now, directed by Aron Hendin, takes place in a gynecologist’s office. It’s discovered that a nurse’s fiancé knows one of the patients better than he should. “I knew I wanted to do a comedy…this had irony from beginning to end, which in a 30-minute one act, you don’t find that often,” Hendin said of her selection.
• Coffee House is directed by Madyson Kendal. In a coffee house in New York, "Dag" meets Amy. But he finds out their future together may not be perfect, and Dag is faced with either accepting his fate or changing his future.

Editor's note: This article has been updated to include a description of Coffee House and to correct which plays are running on which days. It was last edited at 8:33 p.m. on April 12.