On April 17, Setter Stage highlighted three of its members’ One Act plays. Each play was written, directed and performed by members of the club, and the event in and of itself made for a packed evening. The Bianco Room was full of friends and family of the creatives putting on each of the plays, and with a ten–minute intermission between each show, there was plenty of time to celebrate the young creatives.
The first play, “The Weekly Variety Hour at the Shillings’ Family Theater,” written and directed by Tori Schmidt, opened the night with a riot of laughs and melodrama. The play was a directorial debut for Schmidt, and focuses on a night of chaos at a small theater company in the 1930s, in the midst of the Great Depression. The show intertwined each of its characters cleverly with thewiththe narratives coming together and moving apart in ways that had the audience roaring. Each character, despite the nature of the show not making room for one lead in particular, had crystal–clear motivations — often directly interfering with the goals of others, which made for an uproarious final scene. Ultimately, the atmosphere and comedic tone Schmidt and her cast managed to convey both made the show unique and set it apart from the others.
The second show of the night was “Fine American Dining,” another directorial debut, this time by Bridget Jane Kelley. Sporting the largest cast of the evening with 14 actors, the play provided an interesting perspective of the staff at a mediocre local diner, and how each of them reacts when suddenly faced with an attack on their business from within. The play was an interesting shift in tone from the one that came before it, dipping more towards the “dramedy” genre — even toying with a few romantic subplots here and there. Interestingly, it featured several mini scenes of one–on–one interviews, as a part of the process of flushing out the rat among their ranks. These little cutouts made the play feel almost like a documentary and added some interesting diversity to the staging choices of the night.
The third and final play was a notable departure from the others. Due to scheduling conflicts, “Scenes of People at an Airport,” written and directed by the Pace Press’ own Ethan Tierno, had to be staged as an involved read–through, of sorts. Nevertheless, it was shocking how the comedic bits still sang and the actors still made their characters feel distinct and tangible. By the second or third scene, it hardly mattered that it wasn’t being staged in a traditional theatrical sense—the writing and performances carried the production, and made it one of the funniest of the evening. While the time constraints and scheduling issues are certainly a deficit, the cast and crew rallied, and hardly let it affect their performance at all—still eliciting laughs and misty eyes alike from the audience.
The One Act Play presentations are a somewhat new feature of Setter Stage, and it’s certainly fair to say that they have become a raging success. The Bianco Room was practically overflowing, and the crowd was loving each and every show. It was incredibly inspiring to see so many young artists present their work, and what they managed to accomplish — on top of schoolwork and other club commitments, in most cases — was incredibly impressive.
In a discussion with the event’s producer, Amy Hecht, she stated, “It took a lot of work to put on the plays. From auditions, to space reservations, to ordering props, to making playbills, to ordering and designing T-shirts, to moderating issues with the directors and the casts, I was constantly busy from February to the show last week.”
Understanding all of the work, both from the creatives onstage and offstage, is vital to truly appreciating the effort that went into producing such a fun and emotional night at the theater. Each play provided a unique glimpse into the world of the young playwrights and actors on campus and offered an incredible opportunity for them to see their dreams realized.
