Highlighting Student One Act Plays: Cicadas

Elmira, NY (04/10/2020) — Each theatre season Elmira College highlights student directed one-act plays in which students direct a fully-produced short play. Each student is responsible for their choice of play, casting, and both technical and performance preparation.

This year, since classes were moved online before the scheduled performances, the project became a "paper project." As part of their paper project, the three student directors each submitted written director's notes and were asked to create a short video about what they would have brought to the stage.

Today's spotlight is on Sadie Kennett '21 and her adaptation of Cicadas by Carol Mullen, which focuses on two sisters, Olivia and Alex, who have a unique bond that is tested when their mother passes away. Kennett shares her inspiration in the director's notes below and in her video project posted online.

"Life doesn't always go as planned. Sometimes the world feels like it's empty and you're the only one left. It's hard and confusing, and it's always changing. But the only thing you can control is your actions. Your own choices. What I love about this play is that it shows the audience two sides of one childhood. Two opposite adults that came from the same story. No one ever talks about how trauma, how sadness manifests differently in everyone. Olivia and Alex are both independent and they both made the choices that they thought were right. They made their own choices because that's all anyone can do at the end of the day.

If I've learned anything this year, it's that you can't control anyone but yourself, and you shouldn't try. People are so incredibly unique, and so is every relationship. Except for the relationship of sisters. The bond that is formed growing up with an older or younger sister is never weak, and that's what Carol Mullen's play is teaching us. The love and the trust that belongs in a relationship between sisters is unlike any friendship when you're growing up. You fight, of course, but you love each other. When you grow up, though, and you don't have to follow directions anymore, the relationship changes. You either get closer or farther apart, but it changes in a big way.

Olivia and Alex grew apart when their mother died, so close to them becoming adults. Cicadas talks about such an important part of any relationship that you take into adulthood - healing. Admitting your mistakes and accepting the apologies for their mistakes. It's the hardest thing to do, to sit across from someone who used to be so close to you and apologize for the things you did to hurt them, even though you might not have even known how many times. What we see here, though, is two sisters who took the leap into beginning a new relationship in their adult lives, and respecting each other for exactly who they turned out to be. Sometimes the choices they made hurt each other, but it was what they had to do to heal themselves. Now, they can begin to heal their relationship and come out stronger on the other side. Through ex-girlfriends, cat-chasing, Jameson, and some secrets, Carol Mullen's Cicadas is a beautiful story of two sisters coming together in the world they cannot control."

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