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Thursday, May 23, 2019

Last Person: Killing My Darlings

Hi there everyone,

We are picking up momentum in heading towards opening night for the One-Act Festival. There are two panels this year of entirely student written, directed, and designed shows outlined below.

Panel A:        Put on a Happy Face by Cole Haenggi,
                                                         directed by Samantha Johnson
                     The Guardian by Will Stone,
                                                         directed by Nate Pereira
                     A Curious Series of Small Murders by A.J. Glessner,
                                                         directed by Sarah Wagner
                     Sasquatch by Lucy Gregson,
                                                         directed by Amy Stein

Panel B:        The Last Person on Earth by Rachel Stahly,
                                                         directed by Lindsey Esch
                    The Golden Raspberry by Srimanyu Ganapathineedi,
                                                         directed by Wendy Zhang
                    The Three Snap Shoe Swap by Hannah Fretz,
                                                         directed by Mack Powers

While this is a nice summary of all the shows in the panels, I have specifically been working on my show The Last Person on Earth for several weeks now, and this week I had to kill my darlings.

I started this process wanting to work on a comedy after directing two strictly dramatic pieces within the last year. When I saw the play submissions, I quickly realized that I was most likely going to be directing a dramatic piece yet again. I told myself I would try to find the humor in any piece that I got, however, things were pushed in that direction more than I expected. Rachel essentially rewrote her play with the feedback she received from myself and others at the forefront of her mind and when I read it, I found myself laughing – a lot. I wanted to approach this version almost like a play-in-a-day and tease out as much humor as possible. In doing so, there were a couple physically comedic bits that ideally had sound underlying them. The first time I received the sound (from someone incredibly kind and skilled) and had a run through with all of it was last Friday, and something wasn’t sitting right.

The run-through on Saturday had me feeling the same way so I decided to add more bits to make the outlandish one blend in better. The run on Monday with those included had me still feeling off and I started to realize it’s because they weren’t aiding in telling the story – not because there weren’t enough of them.

There is still plenty of comedy throughout this piece because the characters are written humorously. That was enhanced further by some of the directorial choices I made and the choices that the actors layered on top of them. However, the larger comedic bits simply weren’t honest enough for the piece and felt random rather than moments that helped tell the story. They also tonally conflicted with the later time lapse moment which is very somber in nature. These feelings were confirmed by Liz when she sat in on the Monday run and explained how the tone of these moments felt out of place and didn’t mesh with the later moment.

I was really happy that she was there to tell me this because it led to me killing my darlings much sooner than I would have. I wanted so badly for this show to be a comedic outlet for me that at times, it was overshadowing the story itself. I figured those feelings were simply because I didn’t see enough runs and that I would get used to it over time, but I think more runs would have led me to the same conclusion. Being able to come to terms with removing these moments now and having a few additional runs to work out the kinks from changing things, will be much more beneficial for myself and the cast.

While I had to change something so dear to me in this play, it is because it better aligns with my vision and the script. Removing these moments – killing my darlings – will simply tell Rachel’s story better than if I had kept them, and that is why there was no other option.

Stay tuned for opening night,

- Lindsey Esch

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