By Kendra Loh
Staff Writer
Three Union students will take on the role of director next month when they oversee one-act plays on campus.
Jake Fain, Leeana Cargile and Daniel Poore will each direct the 30-minute plays Dec.6-8 in W.D. Powell Theater.
Theater Professor David Burke said taking on the role is an opportunity for students who have performed to actually be in charge of a production.
Fain, senior public relations major, is directing “Blind Date,” a comedy written by Horton Foote.
The play is about a Texas debutante named Dolores, and her attempts to get her niece, Sarah Nancy, to go on a blind date with a man named Felix. Fain’s one-act has four cast members and a stage manager.
“It is different being on this side of the stage,” Fain said. “I am used to being on it and performing, so delegating tasks to the actors to ensure everything is uniform is a little bit of a challenge. But everybody is taking directions very well and [they] are all open to ideas.”
Daniel Poore, sophomore media communications major, is directing “The Ugly Duckling,” a comedy by A.A. Milne, the writer of the “Winnie the Pooh” series of books.
The one-act is about a king and queen trying to marry their daughter to a prince. The plain princess and prince try to switch roles with their servants.
“It is actually not a play about ducks,” Poore laughed. “It is a fairytale story between a prince and a princess.”
“I think the only way to learn about directing is by actually doing it,” Poore said.
Leeana Cargile, senior speech and theater education major, is directing a self-written play titled “The Script.” Cargile’s inspiration is 1940s films, she said.
“I was watching a 1940s movie, and I really liked how the dialogue and pacing of the movie is different,” Cargile said. “It is so much fun because everyone talked faster, came up with witty comments, and action is very fast-paced. I was also inspired to think from a Christian perspective and our views about the end times, how people react in a pessimistic or optimistic way in regards to the world and the evils in it.”
Cargile added that the play is a comedy with dramatic elements. The play is set in 1946, after the Nuremberg trials involving a group of scriptwriters on deadline while struggling to deal with various social issues.
Before starting rehearsals, the four cast members of Cargile’s play watched a few 1940s films to better understand the style of the era.
Cargile also has begun “blocking the show” by deciding the location of the entrances and exits of the play.
“Being both the writer and the director of the show is a little bit harder because I am interpreting my own work, and there is a temptation to criticize the material, because I was the one who wrote it, but it helps me to have a unique vision and to know the characters well,” Cargile said.
