Holly Barton (from left), Robbie Cook and Summer Krouse rehearse a scene from the play Passion of My Children's Lives while directors Katie Pruett and Hannah Clair read the scripts. Chris Thelen/Staff

ASU offers summer plays

The students take over the theater this week.

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Robbie Cook and Melanie Rollins rehearse a scene from the play Closure, part of Augusta State's Summerstock 2004, which runs from tonight through a matinee Sunday. Chris Thelen/Staff

The Augusta State University Drama Guild is allowing students to try their hand at writing, acting and directing in plays that will be showcased during Summerstock 2004 beginning at 8 tonight.

In four short plays, the students are offering an amusing take on soap operas, a drama with a twist ending, a re-creation of actor Steve Martin's family odyssey and a candid look at a hooker's life on the street. It's four plays for $4.

"Now, people will not only get to see ASU students acting, but they get to see us taking over the entire theater. We did all the costuming and everything," senior Hannah Clair said.

Ms. Clair and Katie Pruett drew from experience when they penned the one-act play Passions of My Children's Lives.

"We both watch soap operas all the time, so we knew what we wanted," Ms. Clair said. "The main character is Evelyn, and she is pregnant. While her husband is at work, she watches soap operas. She falls asleep and starts having dreams that she is on a soap opera."

The play takes several plot turns that mirror the silliness of daytime dramas: Another woman tries to steal Evelyn's husband, her twin babies turn out to be by two different fathers, and a character survives two gunshot wounds to the head.

"We laughed the whole time we were writing this," Ms. Clair said.

Friends of student Jonathan Cook have compared his one-act play Closure to an episode of Seinfeld. But the senior cinema major said it's more like an old sci-fi TV show.

"I've always been a big fan of The Twilight Zone, where someone was always being visited by friends and there was a startling end," he said. "So it's kind of sci-fi."

This play tells the story of a journalist who loses his job at the newspaper and subsequently gets visited by old childhood friends who try to cheer him up. The twist comes at the end during a visit by his mother.

Mr. Cook is writer, director and actor for the play, which he finished writing two weeks before auditions. He said his biggest challenge was to keep the dialogue conversational. He has allowed some last-minute revisions.

"That's the freedom of writing your own script. You don't have to stick to it," he said.

Mr. Cook dreams of writing a big-budget script for Hollywood. The 24-year-old has a date with a fall internship at NBC Studios in New York, where he will work on promotional TV ads.

In the meantime, he will enjoy the experience of creating his own work and watching it play out on the stage at the Grover C. Maxwell Performing Arts Theatre. "It's a good opportunity," he said.

Reach Greg Rickabaugh at (706) 828-3851 or greg.rickabaugh@augustachronicle.com.

Four Plays for $4

Summerstock 2004 will present four plays at 8 p.m. today through Saturday and at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Grover C. Maxwell Performing Arts Theatre at Augusta State University. Tickets cost $4.