While the Fine Arts Department spent the summer brainstorming alternatives to traditional theater performances, students like senior Natalie Brown used playwriting as a creative outlet to make sense of their surroundings during this chaotic time.

Because copyright and licensing laws that protect playwrights make it difficult to produce existing plays online, directors decided to hold the first-ever Student Playwriting Festival. 

Students submitted their scripts in August to a committee of directors and Johnnycake Officers, who chose seven plays for the festival. Directors Jamie Stires-Hardin and Kat Cordes and Head of Fine Arts Bill McDonald collaborated with the student playwrights to workshop and produce their plays.

Brown’s play, “In the Back of the Bus,” which chronicles the arrest of four strangers at a Washington, D.C. protest, was selected for the festival.

“I wanted to write something that spoke to what was on my mind at the time—all of the protests and the social and political upheaval,” Brown said. “It was the best way for me to process my thoughts and emotions.”

Freshman Cora West, who plays the little girl in junior Eden Anne Bauer’s play “Autumn Leaves,” enjoys receiving feedback from the playwrights, who are invited to rehearsals to watch their play come to life. She endeavors to bring their vision to fruition and appreciates the “personal experience” that comes from working with a small cast.

“It was fascinating to have the person who wrote the play [in the rehearsal] and to hear her describe how the play was taken out of her own life,” West said. 

To produce some of the plays, actors filmed their individual performances from home, and the videos will be arranged on the screen, similar to a Zoom call. Other pieces will be recorded on campus while the actors follow social distancing protocols, and Johnnycake will send the finalized performances to the St. John’s community via email.

Although fine arts faculty have struggled to create an authentic experience with the new health restrictions, Hardin remains optimistic, finding inspiration in her students. 

“This is my soul. It’s what I do, it’s what I love and even in online rehearsals it is so uplifting to be with the students and be working on theater again,” Hardin said. “You can just feel the joy, and by the time [the rehearsal] is over, you’re left thinking, ‘where did that hour go?’”