Enthusiastic spectators lined up to watch Theatre Academy students perform seven student-directed one-act plays on Feb. 26-28 at the Cameo Theatre on campus.
Theater students prepared throughout the fall and winter semesters, and their hard work paid off. On opening night, a waitlisted crowd gathered outside the theater, hoping to get a seat at the sold-out show.
Inside, the evening began with a piece by Tennessee Williams, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Southern Gothic playwright, “Hello from Bertha,” directed by Victoria Davidoff and featuring a performance from April E that set the standard for the night.
“She was really great, and really dialed in,” said Tony Themoleas, who was there to watch his friend’s play.
She wrangled fear, tenderness and even humor out of the play’s dark subject matter, as a brothel worker facing her death.
“I think she did a great job … the range of emotions, the motion, in general, she did a great job. So that’s several layers of acting, and all of them were great. It was quite a simple scene, but so powerful with the acting, so I was really impressed with that,” said Vitali Kozlov, who came to watch his wife perform.
Director Donny Dahlman made an impression with a unique, rhythmical take on August Strindberg’s “The Stronger.” Dahlman gave the play another dimension by having four different actors portray a role usually only occupied by one. The costume design and the actors’ imperious delivery made the audience question who exactly was doing the judging in a play that’s usually more straightforward.
“This became my new favorite, because, if I’m interpreting it right … I understood how it could be the sides of herself that she felt in her past relationship, and I very much was like, ooh, this is speaking volumes. So I loved it. Loved it. Every single character, too,” said Aminata Williams during the intermission.
In “Yellow Wallpaper,” director Jasmine White and her design team created a beautifully unsettling harmony between the set, costumes and choreography. The elements of White’s piece came together to embody the protagonist’s mental distress in this classic feminist critique of 19th-century medical patriarchy.
“The Perfect Shirt for All Occasions,” which was both written and directed by student Joshua Whitehorn, closed out the evening.
The energetic cast put American culture’s obsession with social media and hype-driven marketing in the spotlight, while drawing consistent laughter from theatregoers.
The Theatre Academy’s next production will be “The Hasty Heart,” written by John Patrick and directed by Louie Piday, showing March 26-28 and April 2-4.
- Vanessa Kolb
