By Rebecca Wagner, Senior Reporter
Northwestern Oklahoma State University’s Department of Fine Arts will be presenting “The Monologue Show” on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
The production, written by Don Zolidis, is about Mr. Banks’ drama class and how they took three months to prepare for their monologue show, but in barely a minute, all their plans were thrown out the window.
This production tells a collection of hilarious tales.
Students in the Acting One class are putting the production on for their final. Kimberly Weast, professor of theater arts, said the audience will have a unique role in the production.
“Mr. [Mickey] Jordan and I were talking about what we could do,” Weast said. “He asked, ‘What about a feeling of an open mic night?’ I already told him that I wanted to find a play that we could put the audience on stage.”
With the audience on the stage, it creates a challenge that the performers will have to overcome. They will have to spend the entire show in character.
They do not get to leave the stage and break character; they sit on the stage and must react in character the whole show.
“[The play] is going to be a very good opportunity and good challenge,” Weast said. “The play does allow the audience to be more involved because they’re sitting so close.”
The main goal for this production is for the audience to be entertained, yet it also has a message to convey.
Weast said there is a line through the monologues that shows that everyone is a little quirky, and with everyone’s quirkiness, people should accept each other and not judge others.
Emily Wright, a freshman theater and mass communication major, said this production is funny when it all comes together.
People might not think all the monologues go together, but in a way, they flow to tell a story.
“The story is amazing. It’s so funny,” Wright said. “Coming together and hearing everyone and all these different sides to these different stories and everyone having a different point of view and getting to hear all those points of views is amazing.”
This production is different from the plays students in the program have taken part in yet because Northwestern has not done a production where the audience is on the stage with the performers.
Lisa Turner, a junior speech and theater major, said one thing in the production that she is looking forward to the most is getting the audience on the stage during the show.
“Never done that before,” Turner said. “We did go see a play production that had thrust stage before and that was really interesting. I want to see how it is reversed.”
The production will take place Thursday and Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. in Herod Hall. There are only 90 seats available for each performance.
For general admission, tickets cost $10. Northwestern employee tickets cost $5 each, and tickets for students and seniors cost $3 each.
“The earlier you get here, the better,” Weast said.