Theater Preview of Student-Driven Shows
Max Neuman, ‘16
May 2016
Six one-act plays, each directed by a different student under the guidance of Professor Anna Dolan, will be on offer in a sequential showcase on May 1, June 1, and June 2. The plays, which span genres from intense time-travel family drama to bakery slapstick, were written by Professor Dolan’s playwriting and theater students.
Matthew Antezzo (Y2) directs Isaisah Rosenstein’s (Y2) Dig Deep, in which MTA construction workers played by Saulo Castillo and Max Neuman (Y2s) navigate dangers ranging from loan sharks to secret trysts to a Rolling Stones soundtrack. Antezzo, who also organizes the show’s lighting design, spoke favorably of directing. He said that, due to student direction, people in the class were “able to get a more complete understanding and appreciation for the process.”
In the comedic duet Why We Really Go To The DMV by Vinzenz Eckl (Y2), which he co-directs with Reham Mahgoub (Y2), a clerk played by Jojo Rinehart-Jones (Y2) tries to initiate a romance with a visitor at the DMV played by Joseph Dudley (Y2) who seems to have everything a woman could want -- except for a valid driver’s license. Rinehart-Jones explained the benefits of a small cast, saying that it allowed her to familiarize herself with her costar. “When there's only two of you and you know each other's abilities pretty well you can kind of relax,” she said.
Writer-director Emma Morgan-Bennett (Y2) puts a surreal spin on Cinderella in her rendition, causing her embattled heroine, played by Mahgoub, to bounce between pain and anger as boundaries between her storybook world and the world of her creator grow increasingly blurry. Although fairy tales and their adaptations abound in theater and everyday life, Mahgoub says that her rendition of the rags-to-riches heroine is especially linked to the audience’s reality. “This story is not a fairy tale at all,” she says, “but it is one of the sad reality of life, one of abuse and degradation, one of sadness and inspiration. ”
Alex Casimir (Y2) writes and directs his play Pocket Watch, which features the confusion and frustration of a man played by Karim Essafi (Y2) as a pocket watch hurls him back in time 30 years to a vision of his warring parents, played by Riku Kawasaki (Y2) and Liana Van Nostrand (Y2).
Dudley is also the director of Django’s Bagels by Max Rein (Y2), in which two generations of a Staten Island Bagels family, Django, played by Albert Cruz (Y2), and Biff, played by Casimir, struggle to preserve their family business by any means necessary. Casimir said, “Let me tell ya it’s a wild ride with twists and turns that you’ll never see coming. I recommend you bring your very own wet suit, because things are about to get messy.”
Y2 Alma Hutter’s Raining Men adapts the iconic Weather Girls song as the backbone of Martha, Mason Leist, Y2’s quest for the perfect man. This play features the show’s only musical number.
The plays were performed yesterday at 6:30pm. They will also be performed today Wednesday June 1st at 2:30, tomorrow Thursday June 2nd at 3:30pm, and on Symposium Day.