A few semesters ago, when Toby H. Paul, Tracey L. Smith, and Meghan Shea signed up for Dr. Paul Rogalus? Scriptwriting class, they could not have known that within a year their assignments would be read, on stage, in front of an audience.
Last Thursday night, October 9, Poets and Writers presented the aforementioned student?s One-Act plays, with the help of many of the members of the Plymouth Music/Theater Department and many other talented actors, allowing the writers to see their work brought to life before a modest, but gracious crowd.
The evening began with ?Re-member a Night,? written by Meghan Shea and directed by Ben Aufill. This play was a compilation of monologues delivered by Rachel Dulude, Tyler Rich, Amanda Porter, and Matt Duguay. The actors who read these monologues played the roles of four teenagers who had landed themselves in prison as a result of an intense evening that incorporated an attempted mur-der. The dramatic elements of this piece grew steadily as the separate monologues were given and then snipped, abruptly at the end of the last one leaving the audience with an uneasy anticipation indicative of how the characters must have been feeling.
The second play of the night was ?The Concept,? written by Toby H. Paul and directed by Crystal J. Mackey. This play was read by Rob Haydn, Brooke Thornton, Tyler Rich, Chris Candage, Matt Duguay, and Cara Losier. It told the story of a group of friends who were slowly realizing some of life?s more existential theories of love. The main character, Ryan, played by Rob Haydn, delivers the ultimate lesson of this play when he states that love is a concept. This play was a poignant messages packaged with a fair amount of enjoyable slapstick that provided a welcomed mood break before the audience was thrown right back into another dramatic reading.
The last play, which was written by Tracey L. Smith and directed by myself, was the longest of the evening, with the largest number of scenes and the greatest number of characters. Although still only a one-act, ?Hell on Earth? almost gave the feel of a full-length script. Read by Ben Aufill, Ryan Sturgis, Tara Cloutier, Rob Haydn, and Cara Losier, this play provided a slight twist on the story of Michael and Lucifer, two brothers desperately trying to gain the upper hand over one another in a strategic game of chess. A fair amount of the enjoy-ment of this play comes from the plot twists, which will be purpose-fully omitted form this article, but I can tell you is that this play will make you consider things differ-ently than you had before.
With the stage directions for all three of the plays read by Dr. Ro-galus, the evening felt more like the viewing of a live radio performance than a theatre experience, and for that, it was quite enjoyable. I strongly encourage any of you who may have missed these readings to track down these writers and ask to read their plays. Trust me, it?s worth it. We, at Poets and Writers would like to thank everyone involved in making this event a success, and we hope that this was the beginning of something much larger to come by way of showcasing the overwhelm-ing amount of talent within the arts of this campus, especially when working