By Emily Hughitt | Due to last year’s success at The Howard Payne University Theater, Vanities by Jack Heifner made a reprise and premiered last weekend, Sept. 16-18.
At HPU, senior directs are one of the key aspects of a Theatre degree. This past spring, senior Theater Education major from Brownwood, Lunday Maninger, chose “Vanities” as her senior direct, because she said it was different from most.
“We thought it was a more worldly message than what we normally portray on the HPU stage,” Maninger said. “It was an interesting challenge to turn that into a personal lesson for people to view.”
The Chair of the Department of Theatre, Dr. Nicholas Ewen, said theatre majors take several years of theatre classes to prepare them for their future careers, and the senior directs are a chance to test out their skills, and show what they have learned.
“I love that we have amazing students, like Lunday, who rise to the challenge and get the opportunity to show the world what they can do,” Ewen said. “Directing a play is very hard work, and if it’s done correctly, most of the audience will never realize the many hours of research, preparation, planning, and labor that go into a performance; they simply sit back and enjoy a great show.”
The play is based on three friends in the 1960s, who each have many flaws. Maninger said she believed it would make the audience look at their own flaws from a new perspective.
“I feel like we can all find bits and negative aspects about ourselves that come out in the girls in the show,” Maninger said. “I thought it would make people look at themselves inwardly when they watched it.”
There was one major change between last spring’s and this fall’s production of the play. Last spring the character “Kathy” was played by Rachel Baergen, sophomore elementary education major and theatre minor from Rockport. This fall the character was played by Mackenzie Nowell, freshman theatre education major from Temple.
“I’m really proud of Mackenzie and how well she has done with this,” Maninger said. “She has picked it up from not even knowing what the show is about. She’s embodied her character very well, with the little time she has been given.”
Maninger and the actresses had put in a lot of hard work and long hours working on the show.
Dr. Ewin said he believed the show was going to do great this semester.
“The show has a great mix of comedy and drama, and it really gives our amazing actresses a chance to show what they can do,” said Dr. Ewin.
Maninger said she hoped to have a great turnout for the performances and believed students would really enjoy the play.
“It’s very entertaining,” Maninger said. “It’s not something students would expect to see the HPU Theatre put on. It’s very dramatic, funny, and sad. It will help students have a new appreciation for theatre.”
Dr. Ewin and Maninger were proved correct as the turnout for the performances were filled with students each night and the responses from the crowd were nothing but positive.
**Photo by Lunday Maninger**