Elmhurst University students take the stage in the first New Play Festival

Elmhurst University hosted the first New Play Festival on March 5. This process took students three weeks, and seven EU students showed their creativity in writing and acting. 

Seven 10-minute plays were performed on March 5, and the event was directed by professors Andrew Behling and Jon-Michael Manocchio.

The seven playwrights involved in this process were Henry Anderson, Grace Geschwander, Anya Flammang, Claudia Schmidt, Rebekah Seidman, Grace Wadsworth, and Nicholas Redmond. 

For actors, Jessica Sanderson, Blake Macias, Zachary Yates, and Bridget O’Rourke starred in these short plays. Beatrice Harbaugh was the stage assistant for the festival. 

EU sophomore Claudia Schmidt wrote one of the plays in the festival, “Together.” On top of having her original play included, Schmidt performed in two of the plays.

“It was so much fun,” Schmidt said. “We had a lot of really great people and a lot of great creatives working on the workshops, so it was really fun to see how they progressed on the whole thing, and then when they brought in the actors and everything we all saw it come to life.”

For the New Play Festival, there was a three-week process of workshopping these plays. In the workshop, EU students partook in improv, editing their own plays, and collaborating with the other playwrights. 

The first week of the workshop was spent with the playwrights collaborating with others to help improve their ideas for their script. The next week was spent working through the rough drafts, and editing those to become the final product. The third week included the actors, who were brought in to do an initial reading of each play and to add the finishing touches. 

EU professor Lance Wilcox was involved in the workshopping process of these plays.

“They had a terrific amount of energy and commitment to it and the final product was cool,” Wilcox said. “It worked so well. Those plays were so good that I was very gratified.”

“It was exciting because I got to be a part of other people’s work, not just my own,” said Schmidt, about performing in the festival. “It was nerve-racking because you really want to do that justice. It was a very exciting process and I was really happy to play a part of their scripts.”

There is no final decision whether the New Play Festival will happen again next year, but there still may be the possibility for EU students to showcase their creativity in both playwriting and acting.