Mary Kate Shultz, senior

What’s the title of your show? What’s it about?

“My play is titled jackpot, it takes place in a small town. The protagonist is a teenager who works at a TrickQuip store, not QuickTrip, and their store sells a winning lottery ticket. Someone claims the ticket but they’re anonymous, so their boss is gonna give them a reward if they figure out who wins the lottery. Shenanigans ensue.”

How did you get involved in the Black Box Theatre Festival?

“I originally auditioned for Black Box Theatre Festival during my freshman year. I really enjoyed the experience of working with students as directors and having low stakes. My sophomore year, I ended up stage managing for two shows.”

What have you learned while writing and directing for Black Box Theatre Festival?

“I’ve learned a lot about leadership in general. How to get people to listen to you, how to be authoritative when you need to be, but also have fun with the people you’re working with. I feel like I have a whole new perspective on how theatre comes together. My writing has definitely improved because of it, especially because it’s a 10 minute show. You have to be pretty concise.”

What are you most excited about?

“I’m excited that it’s in person. Last year was a lot of fun and I’m really proud of what we did, but the fact that it’s happening in real life and we get to have set pieces and have people there watching it, it’s just really really exciting. I watched the last year’s on my couch with my mom, you know, so it’s cool that I’m actually able to share that in real time with everyone.”

How is this year different from your past experience of directing for Black Box Theatre Festival?

“Mostly just focus in person, online, and I’m also just a lot more experienced now. Last year I felt like I was flying by the seat of my pants a little bit. I was having to ask for a lot of help from the seniors at the time. This year I feel more confident in what I’m doing and more free to have fun with it. I feel a lot more comfortable in this role of directing.”

What’s your biggest takeaway from directing?

“That theatre doesn’t always have to look the same way people think it does. Like, I wrote the script in a matter of a few weeks. It’s silly, stupid jokes and it’s nothing fancy and that’s okay. These four actors that I’m working with, they’re adding little improv moments, they’re adding things about their character. It puts a spin on what traditional theater normally looks like. It’s made by you, so you can control what happens. It puts the process on its head a little bit.

Any final comments or takeaways?

“Come see it because it’s really cool and I feel like it’s something that kind of gets swept under the rug a little bit because it’s not like a big mainstage musical, but in some ways I think it’s more fun than that. You’re seeing creative, original things that your peers have made. It’s not something you’re gonna see anywhere else.

Caroline Bork, junior

What’s the title of your show? What’s it about?

“The Transportation Security Administration. Our play is a comedy about Josh’s first day on the job as a Transportation Security Administration worker.”

How did you get involved in the Black Box Theatre Festival?

“As a kid I would watch my older brother perform onstage in the Black Box Theatre Festival. This inspired me to try it out as well.”

What have you learned while writing and directing for Black Box Theatre Festival?

“I have learned that the actors of the FS theatre department are very talented.”

What are you most excited about?

“I am most excited to see our play performed on the stage for the first time.”

What’s your biggest takeaway from directing?

“My biggest takeaway is how the process will come together in the end.”

What has been your best memory from directing this year?

“My best memory from directing this year was seeing the actors flourish with new improvised ideas and character developments.”

What’s one thing you do on opening night that’s kind of a superstitious thing?

“On opening night we always join in a big circle and say our good luck chant.”

Katie Greenwood, senior

What’s the title of your show? What’s it about?

“I’m writing and directing Dogs: The Musical. My play is about a group of three writers who each specialize in different genres, like Western Sci-Fi Fantasy, and they’re trying to write Dogs: The Musical, it’s kind of a spin-off of “Cats” by Andrew Lloyd Webber and it just descends into chaos from there.”

How did you get involved in the Black Box Theatre Festival?

“I first participated in Black Box Theatre Festival during my sophomore year and then in junior year, I wrote for it.”

What have you learned while writing and directing for Black Box Theatre Festival?

“Throughout the process I’ve learned that script writing, for shorter ten minute plays, a smaller cast works best. In addition, I’ve also learned more about being a leader throughout directing people.”

What are you most excited about?

“I’m most excited to get to know everyone in the cast and block everything out so we can get to the fun parts of the actual acting part.”

How is this year different from your past experience of directing for Black Box Theatre Festival?

“In the past, I didn’t really have much responsibility. Last year I just wrote the script and then handed it off, handed it off to my brother, who directed it last year for me. This year I’m doing pretty much everything.”

What’s one thing you do on opening night that’s kind of a superstitious thing?

“Usually I just say break leg!”

Tristen Burns, senior

What’s the title of your show? What’s it about?

“The name of my play is Murder Hour. My play is a murder mystery; it takes place after a performance of Hamilton, but an off, off, off Broadway production. So it’s definitely illegal, they don’t have the rights to it. The tickets were only $2. There’s five people that attended, but one of them didn’t make it out alive.” 

How did you get involved in the Black Box Theatre Festival?

“Last year I auditioned for Black Box Theatre Festival. I kept the idea of writing a play kind of on a back burner in my head, and then I decided that it was something I wanted to do, so I submitted the Google Form and waited to hear back.”

What have you learned while writing and directing for Black Box Theatre Festival?

“I am a first time director, and something that I’ve learned throughout the process was how to get people to do what you ask; you got to learn how to be a likeable leader but also a leader that gets things done. I’m going to help them and guide them and encourage them, additionally I’ll give lots of compliments. I let them know that I’m not trying to be mean to them or tell them that they’re a bad actor.”

What are you most excited about?

“I’m really excited for the audience to come see it. We’ve been working on it a lot and I hope they have a nice laugh.”

What’s one thing you do on opening night that’s kind of a superstitious thing?

“I know that I’m going to give them a motivational speech and let them all know that I love them and that they’re going to do great.”

Olivia Evans, senior

What’s the title of your show? What’s it about?

“The name of my play is A Day in the Shady Pines Residential Home. A Day in the Shady Pines Residential Home is about a group of friends in a nursing home, trying to get through their daily routine of bingo, brunch, and other shenanigans.”

How did you get involved in the Black Box Theatre Festival?

“My first year of being a part of Black Box Theatre Festival was when I was a freshman; I had initially auditioned and I got to be a part of a show which was a lot of fun. So over the last few years I’ve been coming up with ideas to maybe write for a short play, and this year I finally got to put it down on paper and do it.”

What have you learned while writing and directing for Black Box Theatre Festival?

“Teamwork is definitely an incredibly important thing, especially being a director for the first time. It’s been really interesting to learn how to work with my actors and figure out what exactly their vision for the show is, and make compromises based on that.”

How is this year different from your past experience of directing for Black Box Theatre Festival?

“I am a first time director, I’ve done a little bit of direction in a class, but it was only for a scene. So, getting to put my own thing together and see it come to life is really exciting.”

What has been your best memory from directing this year?

“I’ve loved getting to hear everybody’s ideas and see how they make the show better; seeing them as they talk about their characters and realizing that they’re really getting to know them and making them real living breathing people that are going to be on stage.”

What’s one thing you do on opening night that’s kind of a superstitious thing?

“One thing that we do that’s very special to the Theatre Department is our one for all, all for one little chant that we do, we always cross arms and hold hands, which, of course, during COVID times is a little bit difficult, to get everybody hyped up and excited for the show. It’s kind of just a way to say, break the leg to everybody.”

Grace Malin, senior. 

What’s the title of your show? What’s it about?

“I am co-directing Another Direction with senior Mary Green. Our play is based on a 2012 eraa One Direction fanfiction. This summer, we did a garage sale and my cousin donated some old posters she had. We found this One Direction poster and just got inspired. We’re going to actually have the poster that started it all make an appearance on stage, it’s going to hang in the main character’s bedroom.”

How did you get involved in the Black Box Theatre Festival?

“My co-director Mary Green came to me about a month ago and told me how she wrote the script for Black Box Theatre Festival, but didn’t really want to direct it; she wanted to act in a different production. She asked me if I would direct it for her, because she knew that I had a little bit of interest in directing, maybe as a potential life goal. However, later she decided that she wanted to co-direct it with me instead of acting in something else.”

What have you learned while writing and directing for Black Box Theatre Festival?

“I’m a first time director, I’ve learned that comedy skits turn into chaos rehearsals. Additionally, I’ve learned that kids tend to be pretty receptive to suggestions and just overall, I got a really great cast.”

What are you most excited about?

“I’m excited to see how the rest of the world reacts to a 2012 era fanfiction; honestly, I’ve gotten really positive reactions so far which I was not expecting at all. I was expecting people to be like, ‘That’s weird.’”

What has been your best memory from directing this year?

“I had the kids run through the second act super overacted. Like everything was times ten and like so much that you would never actually dare to perform this.”

The Black Box Theatre Festival will be showing September 16 and 17 at 7:00pm.