Article By: Shoshana Akins and Eleanor Kaufman

Four Suffolk seniors are setting out to tackle the most nerve-racking task of their college careers. No, it isn’t looking for a post-college job (though look out for that one…). It is directing their very own student-run play.

Suffolk’s Fall Showcase will feature these four plays, two of which are student written and two of which are adapted plays that are student directed. The directors are graduating seniors Ryan Beagan, Kacie Kirkpatrick, Deirdre McAllister, and Claire Van Riper.

The first play is Began’s production of John Glore’s What She Found There. The dark comedy is a twisted epilogue of the already drug-riddled, well-known story, Alice in Wonderland.

Celia, Alice’s mirror image, steps through the Looking Glass into the real world where she is stuck for 120 years. After a one-night stand with a man named Lou, the two partake in a comical and dark dialogue in which Celia tries to make an honest connection with Lou while he dismisses her as a disillusioned, Disney-obsessed young woman. As the story unfolds, an unlikely relationship begins to form between the two characters, connecting their two worlds.

“The first play I ever directed was actually Alice in Wonderland in high school,” said Ryan Beagan. “I wanted to do this play because of my connection to the plot.”

Kirkpatrick directs the second play, Drop the Curtain, a piece written by her fellow classmate and Suffolk senior, Trevor Livingston. With its condescending characters and quick-witted clips of conversations, the play is meant to be a comedy with an undertone of drama.

The play takes place behind the scenes of a performance of Hamlet, switching the roles and putting the spotlight on two stagehands that are responsible for keeping the magic of theatre alive. While one character has dreams of upgrading his role onto the stage, the other despises the theatre and its participants for everything it is, revealing underlying personal issues of his own. The short play seeks to delve into the unseen areas of theatre and examine them on the one true place of expression: the stage.

Livingston wrote the piece for an assignment in a playwriting class, and when Kirkpatrick read it, she saw great potential.

“He would have never done anything with it if I hadn’t suggested we propose it for the Fall Showcase.” said Kirkpatrick.

This will be Kirkpatrick’s first time directing a show at Suffolk and after four years of acting, she is excited and nervous to be taking on the new role. During a recent dress rehearsal with the whole cast, Kirkpatrick finally got to see all her work and creative input finally come together. The ability to see the characters in their costumes with the actual set rising behind them as the show came to life was, as Kirkpatrick states, “the cherry on top”.

The third play is a longer piece done by Deirdre McAllister called Furfur, the Bad Demon. Furfur is a demon employed by Lucifer in hell and is responsible for torturing and punishing the trapped souls there. Lately though, the demon has not been doing a good job so Lucifer sends her up to Earth to learn from true evil. There, Furfur is shocked by the horrifying acts committed by humans these days and develops a new perspective on her job.

“I wanted to portray hell as a business and play with people’s concepts of what this place is like,” said McAllister.

The last play is one by Richard Curtis called Skinhead Hamlet which is being directed by Suffolk student Claire Van Riper. The piece models the story of the great Shakespearian classic, but takes place during the prime of ­­­­­this working class subculture in 1960s England. With intense violence and barely intelligible English, the play captures all the forceful imagery and strong emotions of the 17th century play into a powerfully unique new setting.

“I was really drawn to this play because of its use of music,” said Van Riper. “I’m not a part of the culture but I think the songs used are absolutely amazing.”

The Fall Showcase will open on Thursday, November 19 at 8:00pm in the Studio Theatre.

Performances will follow on Friday and Saturday nights as well as a Saturday and Sunday matinee at 3:00pm. The Fall Showcase is free and open to the public. For information and reservations call 617.573.8282.