PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, JANUARY 12, 2018
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McNary One Act Festival Jan. 18-20
By DEREK WILEY
Of the Keizertimes
McNary senior Grace
Condello earned a nickname
during The Wizard of Oz—
Director Grace.
While Condello, who had a
bad habit of accidentally tell-
ing her castmates what to do
on stage, has never directed
a show before, it has been a
natural fi t.
Condello is one of 12 stu-
dent directors participating in
the McNary One Act Festival
this year.
“I’m naturally a director
personality,” she said. “It’s been
really fun. I loved getting to
be a part of the casting pro-
cess and pick the people who
I thought would fi t the roles
and being involved in the
whole process of the show.”
The festival, which features
10 original one act plays, runs
Jan. 18-20 at 7 p.m. in the Ken
Collins Theater.
Tickets are $5 and available
at the McNary box offi ce each
night beginning at 6:30.
The directors, four of
which are co-directing on two
one acts, had more than 20
student written scripts from
which to choose.
“I felt really bad because
some of them were so creative
and so out of the box but it
would be so incredibly diffi -
cult to do it,” said Saige Bald-
win, who is one of three Mc-
Nary students directing her
own script.
“Baldwin’s one act, Stay,
is a love story between two
teenagers—a boy who wants
to join the military but his
girlfriend wants him to stay.
Baldwin was thinking
about the draft during the
Vietnam war and her own
friend who recently left for
the Marines when she wrote
the script.
“I have people in my life
who kind of have this sce-
nario so I wanted to maybe
bring that to life and show
people some things are worth
staying for and some things are
worth leaving for,” Baldwin
said. “They fi ght whether it’s
better to protect them here or
protect them out there.”
Since Baldwin is in Mc-
Nary’s technical theatre class,
she’s also building her own set.
Kennadi Thomas and Abri-
anna Feinauer also wrote and
are directing their plays—Vin
and I and Just Another Average
Play.
McNary drama director
Tom Cavanaugh encouraged
the students who wanted to
both write and direct.
“In the past when I did one
acts at my previous school,
the kids who wrote their own
were way more excited and
fi red up to do their piece than
the kids who picked someone
else’s,” Cavanaugh said.
Condello received one of
the more popular pieces—The
InBetween by Kaitlyn Duncan-
son, which tells the story of a
girl named Finley, who is in a
coma and meets two charac-
ters, life and death, who try to
convince her whether to live
KEIZERTIMES/Derek Wiley
McNary siudenis, froni io back, Abrianna Feinauer, Rachel Herriges, Ivy Parker, Grace Condello, Saige Baldwin, Madelyn Hursi, Bella Fox, Jacob Friiis, Kennadi
Thomas, Connor McCormack and noi piciured Jonas Honeyman and Rose Nason are direciing 10 original one aci plays on Jan. 18-20.
or die.
“It’s a really great script,”
Condello said. “She (Duncan-
son) did an amazing job on it.
I loved it. I fought for it.”
Both Condello and Bald-
win have learned a lot.
“There’s so many things
that you have to keep track of
as a director, lights and cues
and you have to write in ev-
erything in your script and
make sure you have costumes
and props,” Condello said.
Sydnie Gould wrote two
scripts, Inside, Outside and Ev-
erywhere in Between, directed
by Bella Fox, and Stuck in Traf-
fi c, directed by Ivy Parker.
The festival also includes
The Golden Crane, written by
Michael Hitchcock and di-
rected by Jonas Honeyman
and Madelyn Hurst; Fear is a
Four Letter Word, written by
Jordan Sheldon and directed
by Rachel Herriges and Jacob
Fritts; Fitzcarraldo, written by
Wocus Gibbons and direct-
ed by Rose Nason; and Odd
School High: Anti-Love Project,
written by Jaden Elders and
directed by Connor McCor-
mack.
Fifty actors, who each au-
ditioned for the directors, are
participating.
The One Act Festival con-
tinues to grow at McNary
after having seven original
student directed and written
plays the past two years.
“A lot of kids wanted to
SALES EVENT
many shows we’re going to
do. I just think it’s a chance to
do something totally original.
The kids get really fi red up for
it.”
orihodoniics for children,
adolescenis & adulis
WINTER
WARM UP
experience what directing was
like,” Cavanaugh said.
“That’s why there are so
many. How many directors
we have interested, that’s how
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