Theater students hosted the playfest “Shortage: An Anthology” at the Black Box Theater on Dec. 6 and Dec. 7.
The playfest had 13 one-act scene plays written by students that were inspired by personal experiences, the media and worldly issues.
Sacramento playwright Anthony D’Juan prepared the students for the performance and said theater is important because it calls for people to gather.
“Not only are you gathering, but you are also gathering watching people perform and tell stories live,” D’Juan said. “They are doing it with other art in full body, full emotion and vulnerability.”
The students made their own costumes, built their own props, directed their scenes and picked the music, D’Juan said.
“The big thing I teach in the class too, is having ownership over your work. Especially women,” D’Juan said. “I encourage the women to be producers and to take control of their work, so it’s not given to others because sexism is a real thing, it hasn’t gone away.”
Writing is one of the most vulnerable parts of theater because the writer is putting their words in front of a live audience, D’Juan said.
Audrey Di Paolo, a 21-year-old theater major, wrote the play “Three Fish in a Box” where three actors wore a red, yellow and blue headband with a fish on top to emulate pixels inside a casino slot machine.
“My goal tonight as a writer was that I wanted the audience to like it,” Di Paolo said. “What writers really want is to tell a story and make a statement about something they think is important.”
Di Paolo said the performance was the first time her writing had been performed by actors in front of an audience.
“I wanted it to be an examination of who’s really in charge in any given situation,” Di Paolo said. “I set it in a casino because it talks about economic struggles and I wanted to take a look at it.”
Di Paolo said to prepare as an actor she stretches her tongue and neck, moves her cheeks and ensures her body is limber.
“A lot of the time at CRC, we all circle up and check in and see how we’re doing and that everyone is comfortable,” Di Paolo said.
Twenty-eight-year-old theater major Lee Rodriguez wrote “Just Friends?,” depicting a queer-platonic relationship after one character received a positive pregnancy result.
“I know a lot of people don’t know about queer-platonic relationships, so I like that it was a way I could give the basics to a lot of people,” Rodriguez said.
A queer-platonic relationship is a platonic relationship with the commitment that you would generally expect of a romantic relationship, Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez said they were too nervous to see the audience or their play while it was performed and listened through the speaker system in the back.
“I’m proud that I had a good reception to my work,” Rodriguez said. “I was more nervous than I thought I would be. Not because I was going to be on stage, but because it was going to be my words.”
River Stage’s next performance will be “Orlando” at the Black Box Theater from March 7 through 15, during the 2025 spring semester.