ACT ONE: STUDENTS DIRECT ONE-ACT PLAYS AS PART OF UNIVERSITY'S THEATRE CLASS

Beth Bishop, left, plays a mother trying to convince her daughter, played by Laura Leyes, to have children.

Director Kim Westrich, right, coached Beth Bishop, left, and Laura Leyes during rehearsal of the one act play "Fits and Starts."

They come to the class from diverse backgrounds and with varying expectations. Many are young theatre majors, dreaming of a life on the stage, playing roles from Shakespeare, Ibsen, Mamet. Others come destined for the classroom where they will teach their love of drama to the next generation of actors.

They are the students of a directing class at Southeast Missouri State University. The course is taught by theatre professor Donald Schulte.

The class, which is taught every spring, is unlike other college classes in that the final projects -- a series of student-directed one-act plays -- are open for the public to see. This year's batch of plays will be presented beginning next week and scattered over four separate evenings.

Twelve one-acts, from well-known playwrights like Tennessee Williams and Christopher Durang to lesser known works by Michele Palermo and Jules Tasca, will be presented at the university's lab theatre in the first floor of the Grauel Language Arts Building. One production, "Sundance," will be performed at Jeremiah's on May 5.

Through the class and their actual directing of a one-act play, the students are given the practical experience of what it is like to be in charge of a theatrical production.

Schulte works to ensure that his student directors don't simply set back barking orders, but do most of the work themselves. The students select the plays themselves, hold auditions, cast the plays, conduct rehearsals, find costumes and even work on publicity for the shows.

"We've found that the directors profited by being involved in all aspects of the production," he said.

At the end of one class period, Schulte scheduled times for the directors to hang lights and work on the sets. Another time would be used for scavenging through the theatre's prop room looking for the items they need.

"There's so much more you have to do as a director," said Kim Westrich, a junior speech and theatre major who has been in several main stage productions at the university, including the most recent production of "The Emperor's New Clothes."

Westrich compared the role of the director to a funnel for the whole production.

"Everything in the show comes through you. You have to unify it until it becomes your concept, your vision," she said, adding that it makes the job much more difficult.

Her task as a director is made more challenging because she has cast actors with varying levels of experience, from seasoned veterans of the university stage to a student from Cape Girardeau Central High School. While she says that all the actors have innate ability, she has had to speak to them on different levels, to be a different type of director for different actors.

Kelle Cates, a nontraditional student from East Prairie, chose two high school students for her production because she wants to prepare for teaching speech and theatre in high school.

Even when she went to the library to find a play to direct, Cates went looking with the idea of working with high school students. She rejected several plays simply because they were inappropriate for high school students. She settled on "Fear," a mystery.

For fellow student Sandra Braggs, the directing class is part of her larger plan to break into film production. When she graduates in May, Braggs, who is from Chaffee, plans on attending graduate school in Carbondale, Ill.

Because the cinema program at Southern Illinois University does not provide as much exposure to directing as she feels she will need, Braggs hopes the directing class will giver her more practical experience.

"The most difficult part of directing is choosing a play. There's so much you would like to do," she said.

She eventually chose "Labor Pains," a comedy which she says is about the pains and joys of adjusting to parenthood.

"People love comedy," she said.

"Comedy is harder to produce than tragedy," said April Scott, who is directing "The Adventures of Captain Neato-Man."

Scott has spent most of her time in theatre behind the scenes designing technical plans and operating lighting boards. But even there the lighting designer has to have an interpretation of the play in order to map out a lighting scheme, she said.

"With directing, it's your own interpretation, your own idea. You have to tell the actors what you want," she said.

But the most difficult part of directing is letting the actors interpret the lines their own way, she said.

Because most of her background has been on the technical side, Scott chose a play that is not "high tech" for fear that she might lose herself in the technical aspects of the production.

"This is the first show I've directed," Scott said. Despite her nervousness she said, "I can do this."

STUDENT-DIRECTED ONE-ACT PLAYS

May 4

-- "Fear" by Crane Johnson

directed by Kelle Cates

-- "The Problem" by A. R. Gurney

directed by Eric Nolfo

-- "Moony's Kid Don't Cry" by Tennessee Williams

directed by Tom Holloman

May 5

-- "Sundance" by M. Z. Ribalow

directed by Shawn Seabaugh

May 7

-- "Fits and Starts" by Grace McKeaney, directed by Kim Westrich

-- "The Adventures of Captain Neato-Man" by Timothy Scott Harris, directed by April Scott

-- "Naomi in the Living Room" by Christopher Durang, directed by Scott Mercer

-- "The Valentine Fairy" by Ernest Thompson, directed by Steve Ruppel

May 13

-- "Labor Pains" by Michele Palermo, directed by Sandra Braggs

-- "Finding the Love of Your Life" by Jules Tasca, directed by Stephanie Zoellner

-- "For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls" by Christopher Durang, directed by Jeni Koebel

-- "27 Wagons Full of Cotton" by Tennessee Williams, directed by Stephanie Williams