Theatre student puts on staged reading of script

Home Culture Theatre student puts on staged reading of script

After 11 months of writing, revising, planning, and rehearsing, senior Lauren Hughes has brought her play, “Among the Others,” to the stage.

Hughes play, an original script, was performed at 8 p.m. on April 9 and 10 in the Hames room of the Sage Arts Center by the Hillsdale Tower Players.

“My show is entitled ‘Among the Others,’ and it is loosely based on the ancient Greek play ‘Antigone.’ It revolves around a modern Jewish family and examines their hardships and eventual collapse as they struggle with the recent suicide of a loved one, and the custom that prevents him from having a proper burial,” Hughes said. “It’s a tragedy, but that doesn’t mean it’s two hours of misery — it has a lot of lighthearted moments as well.”

The Hillsdale College theatre major requires each student to pick a senior project. The options include playwriting, dramaturgy, directing, or design projects, though the option of actually writing a play is fairly uncommon choice for students.

“To my memory, this is the 2nd playwriting project we have had since we switched from Departmental comprehensive exams to the senior project back in 2002,” Professor of Theatre James Brandon said.  “Senior project are usually vetted and approved near the end of the junior year.”

Though the project itself has been in process for the last 11 months, Hughes said she has been thinking about it for the past two years.

“I had the idea in my head to do a playwriting project since my sophomore year when I first took the playwriting class with George Angell,” she said. “I talked to George about the project at the end of my junior year, and, knowing that I had the green light, I began working on it that summer.”

Hughes said she completed most of the work in the last three months, when around students and faculty at Hillsdale. She said it was helpful to present her work to the playwriting class and to hear the script read by her cast.

The playwriting project involves not only writing, but performance as well. Brandon directed Hughes’ staged reading. Senior Catherine Shilka was stage manager and the Tower Players made up the cast: seniors Maggie Ball, Thomas Phippen, Ian Andrews, Christ Lanctot, David Ahmanson, and Mark Keller; junior Ian Andrews; and freshmen Matt Sauer and Faith Liu.

“After everything is finished, I need to create a senior project binder chronicling all of my work and defend it in front of the Theatre department professors.”

 

                                                              tsawyer1@hillsdale.edu