After The Play That Goes Wrong brought Westview Theatre Company’s (WVTC) fall season to a successful close, and before The Prom takes the stage by storm, new stars and crewheads will get their time to shine. WVTC’s annual One Acts Festival, Jan. 29-30, consists of four shows, all student-written, -directed, -acted, and -produced. For WVTC members like “’Til Life Do We Part” director Emma Olsen (12), One Acts are an opportunity to step into different roles.
“I’ve done acting in One Acts all through my Westview theater career,” Olsen said. “I think One Acts are sort of a time for underclassmen who don’t necessarily always get a lot of stage time to have their chance to shine, and so I kind of feel like I’m sitting here, as a senior who’s done all this acting, and it’s like I can take a step back, be behind the scenes and be a director, and let other people have their spot in the limelight.”
Due to the preparation time of the festival being shorter than that of regular shows, many new actors audition.
“We have all these really stressful, big shows, [so] it’s nice to have a break where we have these small shows that there’s not as much pressure,” Olsen said. “And I think it’s just cool to connect with other people. We draw in for One Acts a lot of people who aren’t necessarily in the Theatre Company, so it’s nice to meet new people, to draw new people into the Theatre Company, to give them a chance to try it out.”
There are new faces backstage too, with Rylie Nevarez (12), whose set designs were featured in The Play That Goes Wrong and last year’s The Wizard of Oz, stage managing solo for the first time.
“It seemed like a nice thing just [for a] change of pace, because I’m typically just doing so much set stuff,” she said. “[Set designing] is a big role, but it’s so small because you only really do it at one point in time, so [for] stage managing, I get to be in a new space. I get to do new things and interact with new people.”
Additionally, this year, every script was written by a new writer. Aren Dizon (12), writer of “’Til Life Do We Part,” said this helped them see writing in a new way.
“I’ve always wanted to be a writer,” Dizon said. “I know I have a lot of ideas that I was interested in trying to put into words, and I just really like writing, and I wanted to try getting into playwriting to see if it was meant for me. I’ve really enjoyed watching my characters come to life. A lot of the people that are acting in [my show] are my friends, so it’s very interesting [to see that they’re] perfect for the role. I just like watching my characters exist, and not just on paper.”
The writers’ previous theater experience allowed them to bring new perspectives to their shows.
“Each script is amazing and reflects the authors’ personalities amazingly,” Nevaro said. “The writers have almost all done work on and off stage, so they are able to contribute what they have learned in their crew or past work onstage into their scripts.”
Dizon said that they hope the festival can continue recognizing unique voices.
“Something my friend said before he graduated [was] ‘I can’t wait to see you carry on my legacy of writing strange One Acts,’ and that’s something that’s stuck with me, I think, especially [when] writing my own,” Dizon said. “I can’t wait to see more people come up with crazy concepts that nobody else would have thought of and see them on stage. That’s what I hope [One Acts] is: just more weird stuff.”
