The Blackburn Theatre Department put on a series of plays on Friday September 14th and Saturday September 15th at 7:30 p.m. The festival consisted of five plays that were only 10 minutes each. The plays ranged from funny to dark and mysterious.
One such play, “Train Stop”, was about two people (Alia Stewart and Tyler Jamieson) meeting for the first time and detailed their entire relationship in only 10 minutes. From the tiny white lies people tell in new relationships, to the ugly truth hidden underneath, this couple’s entire relationship was laid bare for the audience to see.
The second show of the night was entitled “Tape” and featured two characters, an attendant of hell, (Brianna Acheson), and one of hell’s victims (Hannah Brown).
Another of the plays, aptly named “Guys”, involved two guys, (Jason Hendricks and Martin Cralley), sitting at a restaurant eating fries and talking about, of all things, breasts. The entire play had a comical air to it, especially with the interactions between the two boys throughout.
The fourth play, “American Flag”, started out funny but quickly turned dark. The premise of the play is that a man (Eric Gudgel) has slept with a prostitute who performed as a stripper at his bachelor party the night before. The play takes place the morning after when the prostitute, Mona (Galaxie Vail), doesn’t want to leave. The situation quickly gets out of hand and Mona shows her true unstable colors. Senior performing arts major Gudgel states, “It [American Flag] kind of had a really heavy theme to it, and while it started out kind of relaxed and kind of comical, if almost emotional and sweet, it quickly devolved into dark, sinister, and kind of crazy.”
The final play of the night was one of the audience’s favorites called “Snatch and Release”, featuring Lorraine (Emily Vinyard) having a conversation with her vagina (Raven Brooks) and her brain (Zoe Michaels). The play was comical to begin with, but the ending was the real surprise. The vagina dumped an entire pitcher of water on herself before dragging Lorraine off stage.
Altogether, the show was a hit, and anybody who went to see the plays were not disappointed with the quality. Hopefully, many of the same people will be just as excited to go to the fall play and see what the Theatre Department has cooked up.