“Seven Directors in Search of an Audience” hope to find the spectators they’re looking for April 14-19 when Southern Theatre presents a series of student directed one-acts.

The directors, members of the Directing II class, will present two to three one-acts free of charge each evening at 7:30 p.m. in the Bud Walton Theatre.

During the six day period, each of the seven directors will present their piece twice. On Monday and Thursday, No Exit will be presented by Jimmy Noriega, senior theatre major, and The Laundromat. will be presented by Stacy Harter, senior speech and theatre education major.

On Tuesday and Friday, Sonny DeRee’s Life Flashes Before His Eyes will be presented by Sunni Stumpff, senior theatre major; Graceland will be presented by Rachel Mastin, sophomore theatre major; and Miss Julie will be presented by Julie Krummel, senior theatre major. Wednesday and Saturday will feature The Flying Doctor presented by Brandon Painter, junior theatre major; and For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf will be presented by Erina Parks, senior theatre major.

“You’ve got all these different mixtures of things that people wouldn’t normally get to see,” Mastin said. “People get to leave either on Wednesday or Friday and say ‘I’ve seen a commedia piece, and I’ve seen a poem that’s on its feet being performed.’ You know a lot of people would never get to experience things like that, but it’s nice because it’s just a one act. So, if you hate it, you’re not stuck there for three hours.”

The one-acts consist of comedies, dramas, a dance poem and a commedia del’arte piece, which Mastin describes as slapstick like The Naked Gun on stage.

The directors of the shows found themselves doing more than directorial work.

“The directors are having to design their own set, lights, costumes and all that stuff, as where when you do a real show, you have other people doing that stuff. So, all they have to worry about is directing,” said Abby Nuse, senior theatre major and actress in three of the one-acts. “But these kids, they’re having to do everything, so it’s kind of a little more frantic.”

All students ran into problems during the production of their one-acts said Dr. Jay Fields, head of the theatre department.

“My one-act only calls for three sofas and a door,” said Noriega, whose one-act takes place in “hell.” “It’s a lot of words. Just words and words; it’s really long. The hardest thing was trying to find out how to make the play interesting with only the three sofas and the door, because they enter hell, and they are not allowed to bring in a lot of personal properties.”

Parks lost two cast members during the production process, one of which left two weeks before the show was to open. Her show uses actresses who were not previously involved in theatre and also breaks new ground for the theatre department.

“I’m really excited about it for many reasons,” Krummel said. “One: because it’s an all female, black cast which we’ve never had before. Two: because it’s a different type of theater than we ever do here. It’s all poetry, and it’s pretty much oral interpretation.”

Some of the directors tried interesting methods to get their actors into their parts.

“We had to have a rehearsal where it was so hot that we couldn’t stand it,” Noriega said. “So, we all went out to my car, and we turned the heat on full blast, and we all locked ourselves in the car and just did the words in the car.

“It got so hot after about 37 minutes we just had to give up, but we had read through about 75 percent of the play. It was just to get them into the feeling of constantly being hot and constantly being surrounded by that type of heat while going through all their actions and everything still. That was interesting.”

Though there are serious themes in some of the one-acts, some, like Mastin’s, are “over the top and hilarious.”

“It’s about two women that are sitting outside the gates of Elvis’s mansion three days before it’s open to the public, and there’s confusion as to who was actually there first. So, they kind of battle for the premiere spot to go in,” Mastin said.

The students’ projects are coming along well, Fields said. The one-acts are also the final exam for his Directing II class.

“They’re doing great, all seven of them,” Fields said. “They take it so seriously. Directing makes you a little nuts; I’ve been there many times. It just seems like your entire life centers around the production.”

Students were told by Fields to do what they wanted when they began preparing for their one-acts.

“I think that’s the best part of it,” Noriega said. “Everything you guys see at the one-acts the whole week is everything that we’ve done, and it’s what we’ve wanted to do.”

Noriega likes the premise of the entire series of productions.

“It’s just a way to bring in everybody and be like, ‘Look at the theatre department,'” he said. “We’re doing seven plays for you. This is what we do.”