The Hillsdale Tower Players directed and performed the Festival of Student Works April 1 through April 3. On Friday night and Saturday afternoon, students performed “The Actor’s Nightmare,” “Wanda’s Visit,” and “For Whom the Southern Belle Tolls,” all comedies by Christopher Durang.
On Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, students performed “The Ugly Duckling,” “The Proposal,” “Trifles,” and “The Cave of Salamanca,” all plays from the classic Western tradition.
The audience opening night was packed—students lined the hall in the hopes that a seat would open up. The plays were performed in the Black Box theater, a smaller theater within the Fine Arts building which restricts seating capacity but allows for more intimacy within performances.
Sophomore John Jordan, who played Henry Irving in “The Actor’s Nightmare” and the waiter in “Wanda’s Visit,” said he thought opening night was successful.
“I was kind of surprised by the reaction to my waiter monologue. I wasn’t expecting it to be as appreciated or as funny as it was,” Jordan said. “There were a couple mistakes, but there always are.”
Sophomore AJ Palubinskas, who played the lead role of George in “An Actor’s Nightmare,” said one notable moment during his opening night performance was being accidentally slapped by his fellow cast member during a scene.
“I am slapped by Nikoleta Klikovac multiple times,” Palubinskas said. “Opening night, I misjudged the fight distance by a hand’s width and so she genuinely slapped me the first time. But we were so well-ingrained in the scene that we just stared at each other for a second then kept going.”
In “An Actor’s Nightmare,” George gets confused for an actor and is suddenly forced to act in several different plays. The problem is, he doesn’t know any of the lines.
“It is not like a role I had ever played before. The fact that I had to call ‘line’ as one of my lines is still baffling,” Palubinskas said. “It was a mixed blessing for me to have not memorized my lines very well so that I could get the feeling of not knowing my lines and being terrified, and being able to bring that fear into the role of George.”
Sophomore Juliana Undseth played the role of Marsha in “Wanda’s Visit.” The overbearing and obnoxious Wanda, played by freshman Emily Griffith, visits her old high school flame, who just so happens to be Marsha’s husband, Jim. According to Undseth, the play discusses themes of marriage and what happens when a marriage goes wrong.
“We talked about how Wanda is a representation of everything we miss or wish was in our marriage,” Undseth said. “She’s not perfect but the excitement and the tension that we almost wish we had is there. Jim and Marsha have a loveless marriage. I think the point of the play is that there will be times when you’re not feeling it, but that doesn’t give you an excuse to betray your spouse.”
Undseth said the audience reacted to “Wanda’s Visit” in a way she had hoped: with contempt for the unfaithful characters, namely Jim, who was played by freshman Nathan Malawey.
“People had reactions like, ‘The whole time I was thinking, “Man, this guy is really lame. He was disgusting.”’ Nathan made some comment like ‘I’ve never been so pleased to be called disgusting.’ As an actor, when you play a villain, you get satisfaction.”
Jordan said the show challenged him to play different kinds of roles.
“It was good building variety into the kinds of people I had experience playing,” Jordan said. “I think it was good to explore a couple different angles of humanity.”
