The Falcon Players presented their comedic one-act play, “Bad Auditions by Bad Actors” on April 17-18. Summit has a long-standing tradition of allowing a senior student to direct a spring one act production; this year, senior Lauren Laffleur was given the honor. 

From casting to blocking, Laffleur was in charge of the production. She said that in her creative process, she needed to curate a vision for each character first, and cast them accordingly. In addition, she had to think out where each actor would be standing in each scene, and teach it to the cast. 

“I went through, read the show, [and] learned about each character. The one act is ten unique scenes, [and] each [scene] has a different character, plus our [two characters the] casting director and Roger, [so I had to make] sure to know what they all needed, [then] host the auditions to cast it. Other than that, I spent some time making the blocking, creating my ideas, and in rehearsals, [I] gave it to the actors. [It] took a lot of trial and error, and [the cast members] were very [respectful] and understanding,” Lauffleur said.

Sophomore Olivia Hirata explains she enjoys having a student director because some topics are easier to talk to a peer about rather than an adult. She explains that communication can be less difficult because she knows Laffleur on a personal level. 

“I think it’s interesting to see the difference, because I personally know the director, so the connection is kind of different than if it was a teacher or an adult who was the director,” Hirata said. “So, I think it’s just easier to communicate things that might be harder to say between the adults and the students since the director’s also a student.”

As a person who wants a career in theater, Lauffleur said she is grateful to have had the opportunity to direct her last production at Summit, and she has welcomed the challenges that came with it.

“I’m very, very thankful for [theatre director] Mrs. Willis for giving me this opportunity, especially [because] I want to go into [theatre] in the future. It’s [my] last show with the Falcon Players, so getting to end it off with such a big step of taking a new role has been a lot of fun and a big challenge,” Laffleur said.

Having a student director isn’t the only thing different about the one-act. Hirata explains that because the show is only 30 minutes, there is less time for story telling, so the actors have to make bigger character choices. 

“Obviously, [the one-act is] a lot shorter, so there’s not as much time for storytelling, so you kind of have to make bigger acting decisions to get the story across in a shorter amount of time,” Hirata said.