Lights, colors, and emotion: all essential components to a successful festival, and Lane’s Play Fest is just that and more. It’s a student written, directed, and performed festival celebrating the playwrights and actors of the school. This year’s Play Fest featured a collection of equally original and inspirational plays.

How to Blow off a Group Project

by Abigail Henkin, Div. 750

“How to Blow off a Group Project” brings relatable high school experiences to the stage. A typical jock and nerd work together on the forever-dreaded group project. The unexpected ensues as the nerd and the jock are brought closer together, realizing the differences that set them apart as one aims to get a grade and the other one a girlfriend.

“My play was inspired by a lot of little moments I observed in my day-to-day Lane life – the two people flirting way too obviously in the hallway, the girl who’s always attached to her cell phone, and the stalling during a group presentation,” Henkin said.

She comments about her strategy of writing, saying “I mixed, exaggerated, and manipulated a lot of these moments until they were able to melt together to form the plot.”

Henkin wrote the play knowing that it relates well to the high school audience, containing experiences that all young students have gone through: project procrastination, annoying classmates, and unexpected grades.

Honor Thy Father

by Frank Macaluso, Div. 666

In “Honor Thy Father,” the protagonist of the play, Vivian, aims to arrange a funeral that peacefully honors her father. However, the funeral ends up being anything but peaceful when crazy relatives and obstacles keep obstructing Vivian from having a simple ceremony.

Macaluso’s idea was inspired by a play written by Christopher Durang titled “The Funeral Parlor.” He envisioned the main character, Carol Bernett, of “The Funeral Parlor” as the protagonist of his play, Vivian. Based off of this, Macaluso was able to write a whole play while perfectly envisioning his main character on stage.

Before developing characters, however, Macaluso comes up with ideas. “I mainly go based off of ideas,” Macaluso said, of his writing process. “I let the ‘who’ come to me later, the ‘what, where and how’ are what really come first,” he said.

The “utter madness” of the play is what will be most enjoyable for the Lane audience, Macaluso said.

Vida Pirata

by Nicholas Quinones, Div. 671

“Vida Pirata” chronicles the adventure of a deeply unhappy man who gets hit in the head and begins believing he is a pirate. The rest of the play comically showcases the challenge his wife and best friend face while trying to get him back to normal.

Quinones managed to draw inspiration from and formulate an entire play inspired by the character “Pirate Steve” from “Dodgeball”.

“What usually happens is I just come up with some really weird idea that I want to see happen in the play,” Quinones said. “I put that where I want it and then I just build around it so that it flows through with the rest of it smoothly.”

“Vida Pirata” aims to entertain. Quinones hopes it was funny, enjoyable, and a nice stress reliever for busy students.

A Perfect Fit

by Christina Lee, Div. 859

This fairytale reimagines the classic “princess awaits prince” into an adventure where the wicked witch is the princess’s best friend and has been tasked with finding a proper suitor for the princess. As the plot advances and the best possible suitor is finally found, the witch is forced to reevaluate her purpose and the least likely match is made as true love is found elsewhere.

Lee formulated the play through her love of fairytales and the desire to see more relatable LGBTQ stories on stage.

“There are very, very few LGBTQ stories in mainstream media that aren’t about coming out and/or struggling to overcome prejudice,” Lee said.

Lee said she hopes the originality and honesty of her play will entertain and interest the Lane audience.

“If I want to see those stories, my stories, represented, I figured I was just going to have to start doing it myself,” Lee said.

Courage

by Patrick Sanchez, Div. 865

“Courage” documents the courage of a young girl named Amanda as she goes through her day dealing with paranoia, self-harm, anxiety, and depression. The play highlights certain aspects of these disorders and develops on Amanda’s relationship between her and her best friend and her and her mother as she continues through life.

“I have been in that position where I have to be the best friend and I have to be there for them,” Sanchez said. He drew inspiration from his everyday life, relating to people dealing with these disorders as the characters in his play do.

“I know that many people are dealing with it but they’re just kind of hiding it; it’s not something that people publically announce so they might just relate to it,” Sanchez said.