A group practices for their upcoming performance in the one-acts.
Wednesday, Dec. 9, at 6 p.m., Northwestern students in Jeff Barker’s directing class will present six short plays in the Black Box Theatre. These plays are produced as the student-director’s final exam for the course.
“The goal of the course is for each student to experience the directing process from script search to strike,” Barker said.
Students participating in this final project include seniors Brandon Assmann and Molly Te Slaa, juniors Sarah Fisher, Rebecca Dix and Renee Ausborn and sophomore Andrew Stam.
“Each student puts a great amount of heart into their work,” Barker said. “It is one of my favorite nights of theatre for the year.”
Fisher is directing the one-act play “Airmail to the Moon” by Tom Birdseye. “It was a challenge to find a good script that I loved and that worked best for this project,” Fisher said. “It has been rewarding working with the actors and seeing the growing progress of the play. It is so fun to see your ideas come to life and actually work.”
The one-act play “Tower of Babel” is the final directing project for Dix. The script is verbatim from Genesis 11:1-9 in the King James Version.
“This story is straight from scripture, but it is definitely my own style,” Dix said. She also said that she hopes the audience will see something beautiful in her play.
“This story is commonly overlooked,” Dix said, “so I hope the audience sees a part of the story they have never realized or thought of before.”
Not only do the directors contribute their skills to the final project, but the actors make the plans of the directors a reality.
“Each actor brings a fantastic attitude and amount of energy to this production,” Fisher said. “They also bring a willingness to try new things and try my ridiculous ideas, which has been great.”
Both Fisher and Dix hope the audience will see all the hard work put into these one-act plays.
According to Barker, this show will provide a variety of talent and style. He said, “The actors are a wide mix of experience, and the style of the shows is wildly varied. There is always a great deal of passion and unpredictability.”