ETHS’s annual Writers’ Showcase will debut on March 19th. This year, for the first time ever, it has a theme: “Parts of the American Machine.”
“We’re dealing with identity. We’re dealing with identity’s relation to AI, we’re dealing with identity’s relationship to America,” explains Tyler Press, junior. Press is co-directing this year along with Hazel Cummings, junior.
Although this year’s production is the first to have an overarching idea, the premise itself is completely the same. In the fall, students submitted over 200 original written works including stories, poems, speeches and essays. According to Cummings, every submission is reviewed several times by the board based purely on the quality of its writing. Once that was done, the board gathered the 50 best pieces, then narrowed them down to 15 that they wanted to adapt into scenes for the show.
“Adapting a piece is an interesting process,” Cummings continues, “It’s a lot of ‘how do I take this idea and put it on stage, but keep the vision?’”
Cummings and Press worked hard on achieving this, even contacting the original author of a narrative piece to make sure they had captured their intent correctly.
“Typically, Writers’ Showcase is funnier than it will be this year,” observed Press. “Come prepared to laugh, and come prepared to think. We’ve got a really funny act one, and we’re following it up with a really serious act two,” Cummings echoed.
“The tone is not very consistent in the way that a wide range of submissions were chosen from very serious to funny,” Junior Levi Raden comments, “Doing those scenes feels a lot different.”
As Cummings put it, the show will be a “beautiful collage” of people doing “what they love, whether it’s writing, directing or acting.”
Come see Writers’ Showcase: Parts of the American Machine in the Little Theatre on March 19th, 20th, and 21st. Tickets are available now on the ETHS Theatre website.
