Spring is season for plays
By Catherine Rolfe and Meghan Chatrath

  Tonight is the last night of the Spring Plays Festival, put on by seniors in the advanced acting class.
  “The festival is really a celebration of the learning that the advanced acting class has accomplished,” advanced acting teacher Ms. Lynn said. “It’s the culmination of four years of classes, where the students can apply what they’ve learned.”
  Throughout the school year, seniors in this class have been learning everything from directing theory to set designing to casting. Megan Drucker, a senior in the class, explained that they get to experience “a transition period to be a director.”
  For this specific production, each of the 26 seniors in advanced acting put on her own one-act play, lasting for about 30 minutes.
  Starting in October, the students chose their play and held auditions to choose their actors.
  The topics of plays in the past have ranged from Santa Claus to pedophilia, leaving the seniors a lot of creative freedom.
  “I wanted to pick a play that shows something interesting, like a relationship, and not necessarily my entire legacy,” Drucker said. “On the other hand, some people have wanted to do a play for a while and already have it picked out.”
  “There’s pretty much only one rule for the directors, and that’s that they generally can only have one male actor,” junior Ethan Krupp said. “They have that rule because not enough boys try out, although there are exceptions.
  The plays this year have favored comedy over dramas, but overall are “most consistent as far as quality and the level of preparation,” Lynn said.
  That preparation includes holding auditions with almost 100 actors, coordinating rehearsals held with the actors outside school, and directing the set and costume designs.
  All of this builds up to a performance in class, where the students are graded on “how well they articulated their vision,” Lynn said.
  “If there were an AP advanced acting class, this would be it.” After they have been graded, the best plays are chosen for the festival and showcased in the McGee Theatre.
  “This year’s plays are no disappointment,” Lynn said. “The directors each went through a great process, and they have taken really good risks . . . there isn’t a dud in the bunch.”
  Most importantly, however, are the accomplishments that the plays represent. “What’s great is the ownership and the development of leadership that the students have experienced,” Lynn said. “At first things like roles and theories are given to them, and now they get to leave by giving something back.”
  Actors from freshmen to seniors can audition for the plays, but each play generally has a cast of two to seven actors. Junior Ethan Krupp summarized his play, saying, “My play is called ‘A Good Time,’ and it’s about a girl who lives in New York City. I play a cop who pulls over a girl for speeding, but when I get to her car she says, ‘If you throw away the ticket and come to New York, I’ll show you a good time.’ So, two years later I show up at her door . . . it’s definitely a comedy.”
  Krupp starred in the play with freshman Rachel Slotky as the speeding driver from New York. Another play outlined a standard relationship between a popular girl and a nerdy boy, and at one point outlined the sexual aspects of their courtship. Directed by senior Sammi Gassel, it is overall a “lovely twenty minute package,” said junior and actor Grace Sweeney.
  The plays performed throughout the last week were: “Laundry and Bourbon,” directed by Kelsey Scherer; “Haiku,” directed by Christina Pfaff; “Time Flies,” directed by Andrea Hagan; “Sure Thing,” directed by Abigail Tarun.
  Also “Interface,” directed by Robin Hellman; “Can Can,” directed by Emily Berman; “Going Home,” directed by Drucker; “Am I Blue,” directed by Victor O’Halloran; “Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks,” directed by Lizzie Cross; and “How I Learned to Drive,” directed by Anna Sullivan. And “Sorry, Wrong Number,” directed by Naomi Rosen; “Plaza Suite,” directed by Bette Rubin; “Adaptation,” directed by Robb Nanus; “Compleat Works of William Shakespear (Abridged),” directed by David Mandel; “Love Letters,” directed by Michelle Homerin; “Suppressed Desires,” directed by Carl Herndon; “A Relationship (Abridged),” directed by Sammi Gassel; and “The Santaland Diaries,” directed by Alex Arnopol.
  Tonight the last four plays are being performed at the McGee Theatre at 7:30PM. Tickets can be bought at the door for $5.