Hawk Theatre Company will perform “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind” May 6-8 at 7 p.m. on the cafeteria stage. Tickets will be sold for five dollars at the door.
“I think the thing that is most special about [the play] is getting to see everybody get the chance to be silly,” theater director Ramina Mirmortazavi said. “We tend to do very heavy dramas, and so it is always fun to see students be silly and make each other laugh.”
“Too Much Light” is a series of 30 plays in 60 minutes based on the Chicago theater group the “Neo-Futurists’” model. HTC has only been able to have one rehearsal before the show. Senior Paige Hall said the timing of the plays and the lack of rehearsal have been big challenges.
“We have to fit 30 plays in 60 minutes and some of the scenes are very long, so we aren’t going to make it in time,” Hall said. “We only had an hour rehearsal and we did not complete everything; we won’t be able to rehearse again, so that’s a little stressful.”The theater classes will be split up with Entr’Acte and Premiere performing on Thursday, Bravo and Encore on Friday, and on Saturday the directors will choose the best acts to perform together on all-star night.
“There’s no pressure to follow a script and there are no guidelines, and it is a chance for the whole company to get closer,” senior and Encore member Rebecca Varghese said. “Especially this year, we haven’t been able to do full company productions because of COVID, I’m looking forward to performing with the whole company.”
The uppermost Hawk Theatre class, Encore, had the opportunity to write their own plays. Senior Paige Hall said Encore spent almost a week brainstorming ideas and assigning plays for members to direct.
“I’m most excited to show the audience the scenes that Encore has been working on because it has been a really fun time goofing around with my classmates, especially since it’s my senior year,” Hall said.
HTC has put on the show in the past, but due to COVID-19 and time restraints in previous years, they haven’t been able to perform the show for a few years. Mirmortazavi said she hopes that “Too Much Light” will become an annual tradition.
“The seniors are the only ones who have ever done it when they were freshmen, so they were really excited to bring it back,” Mirmortazavi said.