Directing, coordinating, and staging one play a semester is difficult enough for most Wesleyan students. Nikhil Melnechuk ’07 and Jessica Posner ’09 are directing eight plays in one week, as well as coordinating a theatre festival and town-wide celebration.
As part of a national initiative to perform 365 plays written by Suzan-Lori Parks, Wesleyan will be hosting and performing a week of eight plays in early February. Parks, a playwright, screenwriter, and novelist who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for her play “Topdog/Underdog,” decided to write one play every day for a year, from Nov. 13, 2002 to Nov. 13, 2003. Parks and longtime collaborator Bonnie Metzgar are now coordinating the premiere of all 365 plays at various locations around the country, making this the largest collaborative theatre project in U.S. history.
Posner has worked with both Parks and Metzgar at the Curious Theatre Company in Denver. They approached her this summer and asked if she would be interested in directing a week of plays at Wesleyan. Posner eagerly agreed and secured a spot for Wesleyan to be one of only 52 universities involved in the historic event, but didn’t immediately realize how large of a commitment she was taking on. Looking for help, she turned to Melnechuk, and the idea of using the plays as a gateway into the idea of life as daily theatre was born.
“We always have some score we are working within,” Posner said. “We have a set and specific things that regulate our interactions. We want people, this whole festival, to look at theater and their whole life as a performance and how theatre is a part of everything we do.”
To encourage this, Melnechuk and Posner will coordinate the building of giant-sized frames all around campus, as well as microphones, video cameras, and tape recorders. They hope that people will use these mediums as a way of looking at both their interactions and the interactions of those around them as theatre.
The pair is also asking student groups to showcase themselves to the campus as part of the initiative of life as theatre. This could include sports teams having open practices, activists staging a rally, or specific interests groups performing a sample meeting, to name just a few examples.
One aspect of this project that will set it apart from other shows that go up in the ’92 Patricelli Theatre is its emphasis on encouraging all sorts of performers to be involved so it can represent the Wesleyan community in general.
“We are currently preparing for auditions this weekend, but unlike most audition processes at Wesleyan, we really want 365 to include an ensemble cast of students from all backgrounds and areas of campus, not just theater,” said event coordinator Daphne Schmon. “That way it can truly be a melting pot of talent, and the performers can collaborate their ideas with Susan-Lori Parks’ writing as the skeleton.”
A contest for both Wesleyan students and Middletown residents will be held to encourage everyone to share the playwriting experience with Parks and write a play of their own every day of the week. At the end, a panel of judges will pick seven plays to be work-shopped for the day and performed that night.
Other collaborations with the greater Middletown community are in the works, and Melnechuk is hoping that performances will take place in restaurants, stores, and on Main Street.
“Where a play is performed affects its interpretation so much,” Melnechuk said. “If you put it on at the ’92, it creates a certain air of legitimacy.”
With eight plays, multiple theatrical events around campus, and the hope of involving the entire Wesleyan and Middletown body, “365 Plays/ 365 Days” intends to bring the entire community together.
“We want people to jump on board with the idea of theatre as daily life, with these plays as the point of departure,” Posner said.
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