Katelyn Cornelius (left) and Jared Koepp rehearse
a scene in "Bedknobs and Handcuffs." Photo by Renee Hope.
Directors, actors shine at festival
By Renée Hope
House lights went down. The theatre became dark. And the stage was lit.
Sitting in the audience, it was easy to focus on the moment and not think about all the pre-production work. In fact, productions are most successful when the audience is simply taken in and is unaware of all the behind-the-scenes work.
For the play festival that took place at the end of April and the beginning of May, the director was a central figure. It is the director who orchestrates the process of bringing the playwright’s words to life. The director is the one who coordinates the technical aspects to work with the words. The annual student play festival provides CSU students with the unique chance to direct.
“Our directing class gets to have a hands-on experience of collaborating with the playwright in a new production, which is something that I think a lot of programs don’t have the luxury to offer,” said Michael Mauldin, director of the Dramatic Arts Program at CSU. Along with co-artistic directors Michael Geither and Adrienne Gosselin from English Department, Mauldin helped select the six student-written plays that were performed at this year’s student play festival. Mauldin and Geither were production co-sponsors for this year’s festival. Five of the plays were one-acts and one play was a full-length production.
For the directors, casts and crews, the festival started taking shape long before the opening night at the end of April. Auditions and casting decisions were made in late February. Even before that, the directors were reading and re-reading the script.
“Sometimes you have to look and see. Because you might have an idea in mind but it might not work so you have to look at it and see if it’s really going to work,” said Renee Patton who directed “Mexican Opals.”
“I read the script several times and I started visualizing and then I started looking at character. And that’s why I keep reading it over and over and over – just to make sure that I have the right idea going.”
“Mexican Opals” was written by Holly Christensen. Patton directed for the first time.
Mauldin said, “I value the playwright and the writing process. And I honor that and being true to the intention of the playwright. However, there is something to be said of a director re-imagining a text and going and presenting it in such a way that you go ‘did you ever think that this text could say this?’ But it does.”
“There are only two or three things in the script that give direction, and everything else is left up to me,” said Arien Hodges who is studying directing and play writing. Hodges directed Tara Broeckel’s one-act play “Bedknobs and Handcuffs.” This was the first play festival in which Hodges directed.Working from script
“I’m really working from the words of the playwright and the first description at the beginning of the play – I put that in my mind and I said what else would be in a bedroom besides this? And then I was thinking of other things to put in the bedroom to make it not so obvious of her [actor] being tied-up. I visualize a scene but I don’t have all the particulars down, just the basics of how everything will be set up. And when I read the script, some words just come out to me, so I kind of visualize how the actors would say those words and what they would be doing while they were saying them,” said Hodges.
James Kosmatka has been a theatre major since he started college. Two years ago, he directed for the first time for the student play festival.
“I really got a kick out of it. I loved it. So I’ve stuck with it since,” said Kosmatka. He has directed for the last three annual student play festivals – an opportunity that he wouldn’t have gotten in other places. This year he directed “The Trial of Adam and Eve” by Tim Collingwood.
“The only thing you can see on the stage is what the actors are doing, you can’t see an emotion. You can’t see an intention. You can only see the manifestations. You have to get what they’re doing and what they’re doing will affect how they feel. That’s how you see representations of emotion on stage,” said Kosmatka.
Sarah Clare, who directed “Murder! Lies! Other Things!” by Benjamin Gates, used the audience as part of the play. She staged the play so that two of the actors went searching through the audience looking for something.
“It’s nice because they’re very focused when they’re out there so the audience doesn’t distract them but at the same time they’re creating such a great moment between them and the audience – looking under the audience’s legs, using their arms as swords, using their hair as a cat,” said Clare.
Gates, the playwright, was in the cast for the production. As a student director, Clare had the largest cast to direct, and used improvisation to help the actors find “little moments that maybe we wouldn’t have found otherwise,” said Clare.
Carly Garinger directed “Beautiful Destruction” by Lauren Kirk. Though she was away from theatre for a brief spell in college at Ohio University, when she came to CSU she took an acting class, and was hooked again. This past festival was Garinger’s first time directing a play. The challenge for her was that she was used to being on the other side and acting.
“I like it though,” said Garinger. “I like that I’m seeing everything and that I can tell the actor what looks good and what doesn’t.
“I like having the playwright around. I really do want to know her opinion and I want to make sure that she is comfortable with everything. I changed around some stuff,” said Garinger.
She changed the setting so that it was more realistic. She had a living room rather than a blank stage with a chair as originally conceived by the playwright. She also changed the music mentioned in the script so that it would be from the actor’s own era, since the play was about someone at that age.
Melissa Crum, a junior, was assistant director and stage manager for Michael Oatman’s full-length play “Indelible.” Crum assisted director E.B. Smith, an area professional actor and director who was a guest artist at CSU last term.
“Everything here at CSU is very, very student-driven, student-run,” said Crum. “I love it at CSU. I’m so involved with everything. I’m learning so much because I have to do it or it doesn’t get done. If I don’t’ know how to do it, I’m going to figure it out because I need to know how to do it. And that’s something that’s so great about CSU. That doesn’t exist at other liberal arts conservatory programs.”
Mauldin believes the annual student play festival offers the students and the audience something unique.
“CSU’s student play festival is a wonderful opportunity to see potential playwrights and actors and directors at their beginning. And to see the seeds of ideas and techniques and styles, which potentially will follow them in their careers as they’re starting to exercise these muscles. That’s what this provides. This is not a commercial venture; this is a chance for an audience to be part of a workshop situation.”
Mauldin joined CSU in July 2006, moving here from Orlando where he was the head of a theatre department at a school for the arts.
“I think the university is playing such an important role in the redevelopment of this area and downtown. I’m very glad to say that the administration is fully behind the theatre department being a prominent component of that redevelopment,” said Mauldin.Summer shows
This summer, the Dramatic Arts Program will showcase its first Summer Repertory Theatre season June 14 through July 15.
“Another part of our mission that we are pursuing is starting a Summer Professional Repertory season in which we’ll bring in some equity actors and professional directors and offer positions to both secondary and college students who may want to be involved in it for college credit, which I also think is going to be a great way of recruiting,” said Mauldin
“And, it’s a way of offering, again in tandem with the redevelopment of Euclid Avenue, a reason for people to come into this area in the evening and hopefully this will start generating some business for restaurants and things like that.”
The season will include two productions in rotating repertory: “The Robber Bridegroom” and “Booth”.
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