By Johnathan Hernandez’24
Each year, the St. Mark’s Theater Department holds the 24-hour Student-Directed One-Acts Festival. During the festival, actors and directors must learn and rehearse their scripts given to them twenty-four hours before their performances. This year’s performances took place on May 13th and 14th, with the performance on the 14th meaning to honor Les Baird. Les Baird, a former director and faculty member at St. Mark’s, started the tradition of the student-directed one-acts, and sadly passed away in the summer of 2021. This year’s student directors were Kendall Sommers, Michael Ferlisi, Sydni Williams, and Sophie Ledonio, who all directed a variety of plays such as Macbeth, Service with a Smile, many more.
This year, I had the pleasure to participate by acting in two of this year’s one-acts. On the Thursday before the first performances, directors were given their plays and actors at random selection. From there, me and my fellow actors had twenty-four hours to learn our lines for our upcoming performances. Having never acted before, this was a new experience for me; I felt like a fish out of water. The two plays that I was cast in were in Macbeth as the Announcer/Narrator and in The Lower Depths as Jeff, a character who finds themselves having an existential crisis when they begin a conversation by simply saying “Hi.”
In being a first-time actor, I had much to learn as I began to participate in this year’s one-acts. I had to learn about the different parts of acting, such as the different stage directions and how to project. I was also able to learn more about theater culture and how much work goes into making a production happen. As a shy person, I found it very helpful in being in a production because of the way it helped me overcome part of my fear in public speaking. Through the nature of the one-acts, these natural hiccups that come with a twenty-four hour preparation production help those participating, such as myself, become more content with messing up. At St. Mark’s, it is evident that many students fear messing up or receiving bad grades. This fear of failing or getting bad grades prevents us from trying new things and failing.
Rather, students should take advantage of these opportunities to participate in activities such as the one-acts and try new things out of their comfort zone and be more comfortable with failing. Moreover, being in one-acts allows students to practice an art that improves their articulation. I feel that by participating in this year’s one-acts, I was not only able to learn so much more about the theater and acting, but also able to become more confident in my speaking. This is an opportunity that I hope all students would participate in at least once during their career at St. Mark’s for both their personal growth and enjoyment.
