Harper Joy Theatre’s Biennial One Acts Play Festival

Faculty Director: Mylan Gray

Production Manager: Eleanor D’Ambrosia

April 30th–May 2nd @ 8:00 p.m. and May 2nd & 3rd @ 2:00 p.m.

Freimann Studio Theater

Join Harper Joy Theatre for a night of performances written, directed, and performed entirely by Whitman students! Read on for more information about this year’s plays.

Electric Earth: Or, the Flower God 

Written by: Sienna Roberts 

Directed by: Rebecca Leach

Electric Earth is an absurdist play set in an earth that is unlike our own. Spitz and Tar live in a tunnel, hard at work plugging in wires. Where the wires go and what they power is not important—only that the job gets done. Tar is perfectly happy with this life, but Spitz has always wondered: could there be something more? One day—a day just like any other day—their reality is shattered by the most unexpected discovery and questions emerge. In a world of destruction, can we change our ways? Can we reject the things that have always been to somehow find the sunlight?

Thank You, Eternity! 

Written by: Jaiden Thompson 

Directed by: Julius Kozisek

A supernatural meta-play discussing power dynamics in college theatre, Thank You, Eternity! follows an actor, a playwright and a ghost. Anne is a senior acting major ready to be done with this play and the theatre department as a whole, while Lauren is a playwriting student stressed about making a good impression with her play so that she can secure a fellowship. While preparing for the one and only production of the play, they encounter Jessica, the ghost of a former theatre student, who tells them that the director has designed the show to be a soul-sucking ritual. With thirty minutes left before places, they must figure out what to do about the director, the play and the growing conflict between them.

Blow Up, Pop! 

Written by: Olivia Wiebe

Directed by: Leo Patrizio

Blow Up, Pop! is a one-act play that functions as a horror, a comedy, and a drama. Set in modern day America, it follows the single, middle-aged Grace and her teenage daughter Mallory as they face the consequences of a recent purchase Grace has made: an inflatable male sex doll named Michael. As Michael starts to take more of an involved role in their lives than the two could ever have imagined, Blow Up, Pop! asks us how far we are willing to go (or how much we're willing to sacrifice) to maintain the illusion of a perfect world.