Town Crier Speaks One Act Festival

Last week was the brief run of "Town Crier Speaks: One Act Festival" in Rausche Auditorium at the University of Puget Sound. This series of six student written and directed one-acts was an impressive event of young talent. The producers: Ella Wrenn, Taylor Griffin, and Daniel Smith did a wonderful job of organizing the event and picking some wonderful pieces to showcase. The event was so popular that on the last night, the audience was overflowing the seats and caused producer Taylor Griffin to announce that it was “Dangerously awesome how many people” were there, in reference to fire safety codes. While I was forced to find a comfortable spot on the floor due to the severe shortage of seats, I left the showcase laughing and wishing I could see it many times over.

            The lack of spectacular lighting, audio, and sets only did wonders to focus all of the attention on the amazing scripts written by the students and the phenomenal acting that was on stage. While everyone did a wonderful job, a few actors in particular set the standard so high it was hard to even compare them to the other students.

            In the first act “Coroner Elections” written by Hayley Hilmes and Directed by Lizzy Burton, “Mr. Birdman” (played by Jacob Tice) was exceptional. He had the perfect ironic mix of a sleazy politician and salesman wrapped up in one very confident personality. The script was very ironic and was very enjoyable even through some of the gruesome details that naturally had to come up in coroner elections. Theresa Gabrielli, who played the elections mediator, provided some amazing comic relief in her silent actions while the two candidates were engaged in ridiculing one another. The roar of the crowd’s laughter almost drowned out any other sound when she began to eat a piece of paper out of sheer frustration.

The best acting of the night however was by Jesse Baldridge playing a new employee that is just having the worst possible first day at work. “Did Someone Order a Chicken Wrap?” written by Caitie Auld and directed by Abi Dehner was a fairly simple plot with some wonderfully original problems that Jesse’s character “Mike” has to deal with at the office. Jesse not only did a wonderful job at the verbal portion of the acting but he managed to convey so much emotion through his professional quality actions and facial expressions. The desperation in his actions, especially when he is trying so hard to mend a serious misunderstanding between him and his new boss’s wife, was just pouring from him in his voice and emotions. One of the best-acted scenes had to be the slow motion scene of “Mike” running to grab his boss’s cell phone and proceed to smash it on the ground. The overall question of “how is he going to deal with this” by the audience was answered beautifully as Jesse picks up the phone and clutches it to his chest and sputters “Well, this doesn’t look good” and with a cringe continues to say “I suppose you’re wondering why I just crushed your blackberry on the floor…” and just before he has to explain himself on that matter the scene must continue with even more trials for “Mike” to awkwardly fumble through. This was also the only act in which there was some sort of technical assistance, while “Mike” is busy attempting to work on the company computer a constant well known computer error sound clip is played to which Jesse responds with perfectly timed outbursts of frustration. This one-act really left me wishing that it were merely a preview of a full show that might be making its appearance later in the semester.

         The most original idea for a script of the night came from the second act “The Race”, written by Georgina Cohen and directed by Nolan Frame. The opening caught me rather off guard with a sound clip describing a sexual encounter, but any hesitation I began with vanished in a cloud of laugher as five students erupted from behind the curtain dressed in white plastic and running in place as sperm, racing towards the egg. The entire play consisted of a brilliantly created script presented as these 5 sperm ran in place. The few interludes by extra competitors only added to the wonderfully realistic biological dynamic of variation in gametes. It will be a long time until I forget the impact of the creativity, talent, and sheer energy within this play. I know I would never be able to recite lines while running in place for 10 minutes straight.

            The acts “The Surprise Party” written Taylor Griffin and directed by Abi Dehner, and “Independence” written by Rollie Williams and directed by Hayley Hilmes did not start out as being all that wonderful in my opinion. “The Surprise Party” seemed to have uninteresting lines, boring characters, and a very bland plot; I was in for a big surprise (maybe I should have anticipated such from the title) when a seemingly average character turned out to not be know by anybody at the party. “Scott” played by Joshua Willis is a loveable character with few friends and is just heartbreaking in the production. Joshua does a great job at being sad and heartbroken while still remaining socially awkward and not letting you forget that he did end up at this party without being invited. He captures the hearts of not only the characters in the scene but of the audience as well which let out many “awww’s” at his loneliness on his birthday. “Independence” struck me at first as using too many strong words without reason and that it just made no sense to even place those words in the context of the signing of the Declaration of Independence purely from a historical stand point, even if it was comedy. But through the historical comedy and the constant snippy quotes thrown around by Reeves Richards and Michael Armstrong, the quarrels between the writers is brought about to be a very funny interpretation of the historical event. While it is not realistic I ended up really enjoying the act after feeling the true argument and emotions buried underneath the seemingly strewn about bickering and silly shirts.

            In the act “Thermometer” written by Joey Fetchel and directed by Courtney Weller; Emily Leong, Patrick Shoop, and Connan Jones did a fantastic job at imitating small children squabbling and playing with vivid imaginations. While they actors did a phenomenal job at portraying how we perceive small children, the constant shrieking made it difficult to understand some of the lines. I enjoyed the overall lighthearted feel of this production but I was left thoroughly confused by the ending. The imaginary person, which was supposedly seen by the other children eventually, was described as having unblinking eyes and I was left with an uneasy feeling that the children had found one of the bodies mentioned in the first act “Coroner Elections”.

            I left this series of performances in complete shock at how much talent a bunch of students were able to display not only in acting and directing but the genius that was involved in the writing of the one act plays. The creativity not only in original phrases but also in completely original concepts was astounding. I am looking forward to seeing the next round of Town Crier next year and am willing to come early to ensure a seat and a clear view of the stage.