Plays written by two CMU students will be performed Thursday and Friday in Moore Hall’s Theater On The Side as part of the One Act Festival.

The festival is sponsored by the Alpha Psi Omega theatrical fraternity.

The event will feature two plays: “Perfect Little Angel,” by Interlochen sophomore Aaron Wineman, and “The Revolution of Policies and Practices by Artie Dallas,” by Portland senior Andrew Lewis.

The festival grew out of the playwright contest that the fraternity holds every spring and fall, said Eric Sprott, a Bruce Crossing senior.

Contest winners are eligible to submit proposals to have their plays produced the following semester, Sprott said. Sprott is the director of Lewis’ play, and said Charlevoix senior Will Barret is directing Wineman’s.

Lewis is an English major but said he has acted in four theater productions, with “Asparagus” being his latest performance. He began working with Sprott during the summer when his plans with another director fell through.

Sprott said that this is his first time directing a play that will be performed for a public audience.

“My show is fairly light and prop intensive,” Sprott said.

He estimated that the fraternity has spent several hundred dollars on the festival.

Sprott said that the casting for the plays was done at the same time as three other productions.

“The others had first dibs,” Sprott said. But that doesn’t make it any worse. You just have to be creative.”

Lewis said he knew the fraternity held the festival each year, and when he got the idea for a play, he entered the playwright contest to have it produced.

The play went through two small rewrites over the summer, expanding the themes, Lewis said.

Lewis said the play was inspired by books he read for a contemporary literature class.

“The events in the play are based on true events,” Lewis said.

He explained that his play is a dark comedy about an everyday character coming into an absurd business environment, unraveling the mysteries of a book from which the play draws its name.

“It was really weird watching people acting out what I wrote,” Lewis said. “But they seem to really understand what I was going for.”

Sprott said that the event will run about an hour and a half. “Perfect Little Angel” will be a half-hour long, followed by a short intermission before Lewis’ play, which will be 50 minutes long.

“We’re hoping for 50 people each night,” Sprott said.

He said the theater would accommodate up to 81 people.

Tickets for the performance will be sold for $2 at the door.

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E-mail the author: Jonathan Kleyer