BU students staging 10-minute plays

Fourteen Brandon University creative arts students are hosting a rapid-fire succession of 10-minute plays at the Evans Theatre this evening.

Ten of the 14 plays were written by students taking a senior directing class, with the remaining students having chosen works they admire, said Rochelle Douris, who’s a drama instructor at the university.

The one-night-only production is free to watch and begins at 5 p.m. in the McKenzie Building.

Douris said there were no defined parameters for the students, most of whom started writing or directing their shows in January. She simply told her class to “direct something that you would really like to see.”

“I’m really impressed with the quality of the writing, directing and acting from everyone in the group … and it’s certainly not boring because if you don’t love one show, two minutes later, you have another one,” she said.

The genres range from comedy, romance, science fiction and fantasy, but there is a general theme involving overcoming obstacles in relationships between friends, family and partners, Douris said.

During the first 50 minutes, the audience will see four plays directed by Tate Devries, Alycia Oleson, Noah Kanski and Jordan Smithson, respectively.

The next five plays begin following a 10-minute intermission. These plays are directed by Mae Bartolome, Rafael Palma, Rebecca Porteous, Logan Baker and Charles Adamu.

Another five plays are put on in the final hour of the show and are directed by Tyler Paramor, Emily Griffiths, Cameron Armstrong, Carley Poloski and Moon Carter-McDermott.

Poloski, a fourth-year creative arts major, wrote and directed “The Confession,” which is set in the kitchen apartment of two Brandon University students. One of the roommates becomes suspicious of the other when a serial killer is loose.

“In writing the play, I wanted the audience to feel kind of dumb and have a twist right in the middle where it’s not actually what you think is going on,” she said.

She took a class in the fall with Douris, who had mentioned she was wanting to put on a festival of plays, so Poloski started writing her script during Christmas break.

“I’d realized I wrote a lot of serious things through my university career, so I wanted to do something that was a little more fun and silly,” Poloski said.

She felt excited and terrified at the idea of directing her own production because she has never tried something like this before, she said.

She hopes this experience will help advance her career goal of becoming a university professor of creative writing.

At the beginning of the semester, the directors gave one to two pages of their script to students in an introduction to theatre performance class. The students auditioned and then the directors made a list of the best actors and held a draft to pick who would get the roles in their plays.

Poloski’s “The Confession” has two actors who met in the evenings twice a week to rehearse, she said.

Most of the cast includes theatre performance students, but a few actors are the directors’ family or community members, Douris said.

She said “the logistics are pretty crazy” with having 14 different casts moving through dressing rooms and on stage while getting all the light and sound cues right for each show.

Each play has its own assigned crew member, and they have a maximum of two minutes to successfully transition before the next play starts.

“They’ve gotten very quick at doing their set changes and getting ready for the next one,” Douris said.

This is the first year the drama instructor is putting together a mini-festival of plays.

She took part in the Quebec Drama Federation for several years, which inspired her to try something similar with her students.

“The way that we’ve been viewing the festival is that this is a learning endeavour,” Douris said.

“It isn’t about coming out with an absolutely polished piece that’s ready for Broadway. It’s about doing the very, very best that you can do within the time frame.”

She said her students have gained skills and experience from the technical and creative aspects, but also what it takes in coaching actors to deliver their best performance and character portrayal.

» tadamski@brandonsun.com