Student Directors Produce One Act Play Festival

by Macey Kroeger

Each year, the One Act Play Festival features productions directed entirely by students. This year’s festival featured six different shows directed by students from Concordia’s play production class.

This year, seniors Rebecca Blank, Ian Hendrickson, Melonie Kotschwar and Dylan Olmsted and juniors Jayme Lowe and Abigail Wisniewski were responsible for choosing the plays, selecting the casts, designing the sets, and directing the shows. The actors and directors began fine-tuning their shows in February after auditions were held.

One of the first steps for directors was selecting a play. Senior Rebecca Blank, director of “The Trial of Billy Scott,” went about her own way of finding a play that would fit what she was looking for.

“I was flipping through books in the library and came across a book of children’s plays and found one that was a children’s language comedy. I discovered that this one would work well,” Blank said.

After selecting their scripts, the directors had to choose their casts.

“I kind of knew how my characters were going to act and what their personalities were going to be, so I tried to pick people that would fit these positions that I had imagined in my head,” senior Dylan Olmsted said. Olmsted directed “The Plot to Assassinate the Chase Manhattan Bank.”

Blank and Olmsted felt that the process of directing the one acts was beneficial for them.

“I think that it is beneficial to get out of your comfort zone and try new things, which I was definitely doing during this entire process,” Olmsted said.

The One Act Play Festival was held in the Black Box Theatre in the Music Center on April 5-7 at 7:30 p.m.

“It has become a really good learning experience because this will be part of what I do for the rest of my life as an English teacher directing one acts,” Blank said. “I also think it is a good experience to work with your peers before you learn to work with people that you’re really in authority over.”