The Players poster taking intent applications for One Acts. @PLAYERSMU / INSTAGRAM
Victoria Schiller, Senior Writer
Preparation for the spring musical, The Addams Family, has not stopped the MU Players from putting on multiple shows and performances throughout the semester. In early February, Players announced they were accepting overseer and director intents for their annual One Acts performances.
This year’s One Acts consist of six, 10-12 minute long performances, all ranging in genre. The Quadrangle had the opportunity to meet with the chosen overseer and directors to hear a little bit about their anticipated performances and what the MU community can expect.
James Cullen, a junior marketing major, wrote two out of the six scripts for the show and is this year’s One Acts overseer. The Quadrangle asked Cullen about the process and what inspired him to submit an intent for the overseer position.
“My first introduction to Players last year was with the One Acts, that was the first production I ever did,” Cullen said. “I wrote, directed and acted in a piece, and I thought that was a great experience. It was well run last year. Robert Nolan was organizing it and he did a really good job and I just thought if I could make it easier for people who are operating their own pieces, maybe they can get that introduction and experience. I thought it would be nice to help out with that.”
Cullen spoke about the process behind these roles and how final decisions are made.
“It’s all based on intents,” Cullen said. “Directors and overseers both have to put an intent saying why you’re qualified, what you’re going to do, what are your ideas, what are you going to bring to the table. For an overseer, it’s tricky because you don’t have the pieces. You don’t know what’s going to be on stage. Your ideas have to be broad strokes and mostly just cerebral with planning, why you’re good at that, and why you can make that work, and why, maybe creatively, you have enough experience to work with directors as well. It is the [Players] board that makes the decision.”
Aaron Schoepf and Kevin Cullen are both directing One Acts this year and sat down with The Quadrangle to discuss their performances, the inspiration behind their intent to direct, as well as how the process and preparation has been. Schoepf is a junior English major and production manager for Players. He will be directing “Inconvenient Truth!” for One Acts this year.
“How the shows are done is the directors submit a pitch for the show and the board then decides, depending on time, characters, resources needed, that kind of thing,” Schoepf said. “We usually pick about five or six shows because they’re 10 minutes each and it’s going to even out to about an hour. The directors pick their own shows, but it’s up to the board if that show is done.”
Schoepf has directed and co-directed in the past, and discussed “Inconvenient Truth!”, what students can look forward to and what he is most excited for.
“Inconvenient Truth! is basically a lie detector game show,” Schoepf said. “It follows these two couples, the McLoughlins and the Beeks. They’re asked personal questions and the producer will be like, ‘truth or lie?’ In the beginning it’s very tame, but as the story goes on, they get more personal and it’s basically just a really fun, big and silly show. I’m excited for people to see it. There’s a lot of silly shows in this one. And the great thing about this year is most of the plays are written by students in Players!”
Kevin Cullen is a junior English major with a minor in theater and is the historian for the Players board. With directing experience on and off campus, Cullen spoke about how he became director for the One Act titled, “Calico”.
“Mine was written by Olivia Deegan, who is a freshman here,” Cullen said. “She sent me a message right when the acts were announced and said, ‘Hey, I want to write this one act, would you be fine doing that?’ and I said yes. I think it’s great to encourage people to write their own One Acts. It’s another skill set that can be prevalent, but isn’t always as prevalent in the One Acts. Olivia sent her script to me, I made some suggestions, and she took my advice and did such a great job with it. I think it’s a fun little script.”
The Quadrangle asked Cullen about his ideas and the preparation for “Calico”, as well as how rehearsals will work throughout the upcoming weeks.
“It’s kind of a gothic horror-inspired story where there’s two college roommates and one creates a Frankenstein’s monster cat and then the cat starts to manipulate the guy that created him,” Cullen said. “This strikes me as the kind of One Act that you don’t normally see put on here. A lot more of them are funny or a little more serious, but they’re not horror … I’m in talks with people on how we want to do it … how the characters progress through the story.”
The director of “Calico” further discussed what scheduling typically looks like for One Act performances.
“When we did this last year, my schedule had three rehearsals before tech week,” Cullen said. “You don’t need too much for the 10 minute plays. Mine might need an extra amount of time because there are very specific things I want to do to make sure everything works out and looks fine.”
Players will be performing their One Acts on the weekend of March 28 and 29.