Last weekend, the Drama Student Federation presented their annual O-Week One Act Play Festival. The festival ran from Thursday to Saturday night and each night included the same three student-written plays.
According to Drama Student Federation vice-president Kenny Grenier, the O-Weeks — and their winter semester analogue, the Sno-Weeks — are what theatre at Guelph is all about.
“They represent what our program stands for. It is by students for students. When you come and see an O-Week, when you come and see a Sno-Week, you are seeing our program at its rawest,” said Grenier.
[media-credit name=”Megan Sullivan” align=”alignnone” width=”1020″]
Raw is right: most of these short works are rehearsed and staged in around a week’s time. “You are seeing what we can do when we start with very little and we build from there,” Grenier added.
With so little time to prepare, it’s no surprise that some of the staging is awkward and some of the performances are shaky.
But there are always diamonds in the rough, like the performances of Abby Buchan, Alexa Vermey, and Adam Newton, which gave The Door real impact despite its cheesy premise. Another standout was the heady yet sophisticated script of Martin Washburn’s The Best Man, which also featured a killer comedic turn by Amy Zhang.
The process’s brevity also lowers the stakes, encouraging students to take on a role they’re uncomfortable with.
Judging by the many students loitering in the aisles at intermission, goading each other to submit scripts for the next festival, theatre students have got lots to say, and the O-Weeks are a good way to say it.
Photo by Megan Sullivan.