Clarkson Integrator

Issue date: 2/6/06 Section: Entertainment

Media Credit: Jen Wilkinson From the left, Alicen Morley, Tosca Chirco, Kyle McCarthy, and Cip Mills star in Cip Mills' "The Legend of Candy Land," one of the featured plays at this year's Clarkson Theatre Company One Act Festival. Other performances included "Understand Me the Lesbian Jazz Singer," "Not I," "Board Games," "Today's Special," and "Night Visits."

Over the weekend the Clarkson Theatre Company (CTC) put on its annual One Acts festival. This is the same festival that brought you shows such as "Man You Serious?" and "From There and Back Again, A Pac Man Tale." There is something for everyone at the One Acts Festival, this year being no exception.

The first one act, entitled "Understand Me the Lesbian Jazz Singer," written and directed by Kimone O'Meally, depicts the story of a lesbian jazz singer, Emily Patterson, who was played by Megann Strain. Emily was not accepted by her mother (played by Katie Buckley) because of her career decisions and her sexual orientation. The one act later went on to show Emily at a jazz club at an amateur's night with her family present minus her mother. Just as Emily goes up on stage her mother sneaks in and sits in the audience. Emily then dedicated the song the she was about to sing to her family right before the one act ended. This one act left the audience wanting more, wanting some sort of conclusion, rather than a cliff hanger.

The next one act, entitled "Not I," written by Samuel Beckett and directed by Tony Tambasco, was a monologue that featured Megann Strain. The only thing that the audience could see was Megann's red lips while the rest of her was hidden behind scenery. This one act was very hard to follow and very hard to understand. At the conclusion of this performance the audience was left wondering "what exactly just happened?"

The last one act before intermission was a trademark Cip Mills production entitled "Board Games." This one act answered the question "What if every game was played with people, just like human chess?" During the show the audience was taken from board game to board game. Some of the games that were depicted were Operation, Don't Wake Daddy, Human Darts, and Stratego. This performance left the audience laughing and remembering what those games were like to play back in the day.

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