'Short Stack' comin' right up
By Melanie Barnes, Entertainment Writer
May 1, 2008 | 8 p.m.
The Lost Flamingo Company once again brings “Short Stack” to the top of the heap for a night of student-written, student-directed and student-performed theater. Get your fill 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday in Mitchell Auditorium.
Seven comedies and a lone comedic drama are brought to the stage for this year’s “Short Stack,” a production put on by the Lost Flamingo Company. A showcase of talent, “Short Stack” is fully produced by OU students.
“Trashed,” written by junior Gina Beach and directed by freshman Arianna Iliff, is the story of a successful female realtor who is married to a trash-inspecting scientist. Fed up with his trash obsession, she decides to bring him closer to his first love-- garbage-- by throwing him away.
“I chose 'Trashed' because of the absurdity of the humor,” Iliff said. “I want the audience to understand that sometimes people are so concerned with their own problems, they don’t stop to realize other problems are bigger.”
The next play, “Bad News,” could not have a better title. Directed by sophomore Devin Devor, “Bad News” begins with a couple having a conversation in a restaurant. Unsatisfied with her boyfriend’s one-sided baseball speech, the girlfriend spontaneously informs her boyfriend that she is pregnant. When he freaks, she changes the subject but is soon interrupted by a shoeless, hillbilly waiter named Shammer. In the middle of an argument over ordering steak and waffles, the girlfriend drops another bomb: she is having twins and is considering naming one of them Shammer.
“On Second Thought” is a story of modern-day druggie hobos directed by senior Catie Coleman. The druggie hobos have sneaked into what they thought was a basement apartment but actually turns out to be a crawlspace with a dog. When the family finds them in the morning, the hobos fix pancakes for them and tell the parents about how they corrupted their 12-year-old daughter by smoking pot with her the night before.
“Billy and the Fantastic Pleasure Machine” is an Eagle Scout’s film-noir daydream written by sophomore Molly Hagan and directed by senior Kate Krushinski. Obsessed with the MILF of the block, the Eagle Scout imagines himself as Humphrey Bogart, seducing the housewife while romanticizing the actual event taking place, which is a door-to-door Tupperware sale.
“Dan and the Talking Dick” was written by senior Alina Buccella and directed by junior Drew Crabtree. On an awkward teenage first date shopping excursion, Dan is unsure of how to tell his date he likes her. Exactly as the title sounds, Dan is getting advice to make a move from his lower half, who actually prefers being called Richard as opposed to Dick. Not to be outdone, Dan’s prepubescent seventh-grade self also appears to represent the more innocent side of the devil/angel conscience dichotomy.
“Happenstance,” directed by senior Adam Shelton, focuses on a blind date featuring a cynical female and a smooth-talking male. As the date progresses, the female finds that she may be talking to the wrong guy, but she also discovers that she may not care.
“Fear of Silence,” the only drama in the stack, was written by Crabtree and directed by Hagan. Centered around a comedian who fears he may have lost his spark, the play takes place in his dressing room, ten minutes before he is scheduled to perform to a packed house. His decision is not made any easier by his crazed, intern-bashing agent, drawn to epitomize Hollywood’s longstanding stereotype.
“Game Day,” written by senior Doug Devor and directed by Buccella, is the story of four testosterone-driven roommates who cannot figure out how to spend their Sunday without cable. Furious that they cannot watch the game and that pizza will take over two hours to be delivered, the roommates are left to venture into a territory where no male has willingly gone before: male bonding.
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Fill up with laughter and experience OU’s finest examples of student-run theater for only $3, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday in Mitchell Auditorium, located on the top floor of Siegfried Hall.