FTT presents 'New Playwrights Workshop 2002'
By C. SPENCER BEGGS
Scene Editor
The campus spotlight doesn't always illuminate the real work that goes into a show. Actors are not the only people who produce a show. Some of the hardest work in any production is completed before a show even starts.
Writers and directors must decide how the show will be presented and what it will say long before the first line crosses an actor's lips. Unfortunately, students are often removed from this creative process; most campus shows involve a complete professional script or director.
But, the seven one-act plays presented in the Department of Film, Television and Theatre's "New Playwrights Workshop 2002" are all written, directed, produced and performed by students. The authors of the shows participated in the FTT 351: Playwriting and Screenwriting class last semester, but the directors, stage managers and actors come from other campus performing arts groups. In fact, the show will be the Notre Dame premiere of some of the actors.
Although each show is credited with a writer and a director, the two positions collaborated on the shows.
"In the "New Playwrights [Workshop 2002]," the playwrights would be at the rehearsal ... There was a lot of changing and reworking of the scripts," Meg Ryan, one of the directors, said.
Ryan, who directed senior Kelly Hart's play "Love Hurts," often had Hart attend rehearsal to help shape the show. Ryan found the process to be productive, especially for a show that was partially based on Hart's real life.
"Love Hurts" is a romantic comedy about college students dealing with a long distance relationship (or break-up as the case may be). The dialogue-heavy show was particularly difficult for the group to get a handle on because both Ryan and Hart were involved in other theatre shows during the two-week rehearsal process.
But Ryan thinks that the entire process was worth it because of the benefits it gives to the theatre community at Notre Dame, especially because the "New Playwrights Workshop 2002" highlights some more unknown aspects of theatre production.
"[The `New Playwrights Workshop 2002' is] important because it gets to showcase some of the talents of theatre majors here other than acting and design," Ryan said.
Sophomore director Justin Williams, who is directing junior Derek Horner's play "Linedrive to Right," agrees that the show gives aspiring actors a chance they might not otherwise have.
"It's good for beginning directors like myself… [It also gives us] more chances more chances to get actors involved in the first place," Williams said.
Two of Williams' actors have never been in a play at Notre Dame before; in fact, one has never done any theatre at all. "Linedrive to Right," a commentary on the teachings of organized religion on justice and forgiveness, is certainly a large undertaking for a first play.
The short rehearsal process made the groups producing each show develop their characters and concepts quickly. With the rewriting that the directors and writers did, a polished product didn't develop until the night before opening.
Williams and Horner actually went back and choose a different draft of the script than the one that had been submitted to the class to better convey the meaning.
"It's definitely different directing a student-written show because you can work directly with the writer … if you find something that doesn't work you can rewrite it, but there's a lot you can play with," Williams said.
The plays in the "New Playwrights Workshop 2002" run from serious pieces like senior Babs Smith's play "So Far Gone" to irreverent satire like sophomore Chris Sandrock's "The Moral Tale of Everystudent."
Smith's play, directed by junior Bill Kalman, deals with the effects of alcoholism on a family. She feels that the psychoanalytic show reflects aspects of both the Notre Dame campus and many students' family lives.
"I think the issue of alcoholism is a really important issue on this campus especially for children of alcoholics or people with alcoholism in their family. And it's not really dealt with on this campus," Smith said.
"So Far Gone" features familiar campus theatre faces like junior Monica Kerschner and sophomores Sean Nelson and Cheryl Turski. The piece features a flashback convention in which the play takes place in two time periods at once for dramatic effect.
Another drama, senior Suzanne Dietman's "Dance is Life," delves into the thought process of perfectionism: a theme reminiscent of over-achieving and over-stressed Notre Dame students' personal drama.
On the other hand, "The Moral Tale of Everystudent," satirizes the Notre Dame campus and its traditions. The show is the story of Everystudent (played by freshmen Steve Hoeplinger), the student hero, and his battle against the nemesis of Phil Smirk (played by sophomore Mike Romano), a daemon sent by God (played by sophomore Adel Hanash) to order the campus.
Overall, the shows have been a learning experience for the group.
"Especially for theatre majors considering a career in writing, it's important to see your work expressed on stage because it looks so different on paper… it can get so manipulated going from the paper to the stage," Williams said.
The "New Playwrights Workshop 2002" will be presented in two sections. The first section with the plays "Solitaire," "Dance is Life," "Love Hurts" and "So Far Gone" were presented yesterday and last Wednesday. The second set of shows that is comprised of "Going Away," Linedrive to Right" and "The Moral Tale of Everystudent" will be presented in the Lab Theatre in Washington Hall at 7:00 p.m. tonight and tomorrow night. Admission is free.
Contact C. Spencer Beggs at beggs.3@nd.edu.
All Scene Stories for Friday, February 15, 2002
