Alicia Witt once said, “Acting is magical. Change your look, and your attitude, and you can be anyone.” Students who take an acting class at Hall are given the opportunity to audition for Black Box plays.  I talked to the Theater Department’s Prop Master, Beca Michalena who will tell us about Black Box plays and how it enhances a student’s acting experience.

Let’s start with the reason for why these plays take place. Beca (senior) said, “ I believe it enhances them [the acting students] in terms of getting them experience, because you can practice all you can in high school and memorize monologues and practice all kinds of emotions, but unless you’re actually going through the process of getting into a character… it’s the purpose of making sure you’re comfortable doing this because… once it gets to the real thing, you need to know if you’re ready for that, if you’re not going to freeze up on stage… something that helps… is going through the small black box plays that are more intimate and more allowing you to be free so that they can experience the acting life before having to take the risk when they’re adults…” The plays give the students a taste of the real world as an actor.

I asked Beca if she knew of any upcoming plays and she said, “Normally the teacher decides the play… four plays a year and one is student directed… Next play is in December I think.”

Now we get to see all of the work that goes into these plays. Beca said, “First we read the play as a class, usually the tech people get it first… we find out the set design. While tech people [anyone in stagecraft with Beca] build the set, that’s when auditions happen… cast list goes up… rehearsals go from 3;45 pm to about 5:00 pm, they’re about two hour rehearsals.” “Black box plays normally open on a Wednesday… they normally go on for about a week… [update: The plays go on for four days].”

Earlier I mentioned that Beca is the Prop Master but didn’t explain what that means. Here is what Beca does as the Prop Master, “ I don’t really stay for the rehearsals since I’m the Prop Master, I go and set everything up so that if they need a tea set, I get them a tea set.”