Three theatre students will each present a one act play of their choosing they will direct for their Directing Two class. The performances will be April 26-27 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

The performances will include: Black Comedy by Peter Shaffer and directed by Summer Akers, a comedy staged under a reverse lighting scheme, Dog Sees God Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead by Bert V. Royal, a seriocomedy that brings back childhood characters, and Elephants by Paul Bovino, a darker seriocomedy with a small cast.

“Spring of even years we have a directing two class, advance directing essentially, and students within that class, as a part of their assignment direct a one act and we put them all together into the evenings of one acts,” said David Ruebhausen, associate professor of theatre.

Every aspect of the one act plays is prepared by students.

“This is a production of peers put on by students who are peers,” Shelton said. “It’s cool to go and see and say ‘Hey these are people my age that I have class with who have done this.’”

There was a total of 16 students to audition for the one acts, she said.

“You audition for all three directors at once and we take notes and mark who we’re interested in and then afterwards we thank everyone for coming and then the directors will go and we will discuss who wants who,” Shelton said. “We may have to barter for people just about, you can have this person if I can have this we person and then we decided the cast from there.”

The preparation time for the one acts varies with each show.

Akers realized her show was more work than she had originally thought, she said.

“I personally picked a one act that has a lot of different elements to it,” Akers said. “There’s a lot of moving on and off of furniture and a lot of physical comedy and technical stuff that I thought about but now that I’m really getting into rehearsal and thinking this is going to take a lot more rehearsal time than I had hoped.”

The hardest part for St. John was sitting down and doing the work, he said.

“I had a closer idea of what was involved with what I needed to do so that everything is set into plan,” St. John said. “We just started rehearsals and created schedules and everything to make life easier for the actor so that they can just focus on creating that character and memorizing those lines.”

Though the plays are in April, Akers and St. John found their one acts years before, they said.

“I had heard of mine before and thought it was an interesting concept,” Akers said. “I thought it would be a good challenge for me to do as a director for my final project. I like pforming comedy myself so I thought it would be good to direct it and see what it’s like from the other end of it.”

The seniors encourage students to come out and support their one acts because of the variety of shows presented.

“Each one of them has something else to offer,” St. John said.