Inspired by classic radio dramas, young theater performers present an evening of one-act thrillers.
By EILEEN SCHULTE
Published August 1, 2003
CLEARWATER - Two weeks ago, Nicole Evans-Haumesser grouped 17 young performers and led them into the Murray Studio Theater inside Ruth Eckerd Hall.
When they were settled in their seats, she turned off all the lights.
Then she turned on a recording of the famous Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio drama and asked them to listen.
Within seconds they were transported back to the day before Halloween in 1938, when the radio reported a "huge flaming object" had dropped on a farm near Grovers Mill, N.J. The town and then the country, was invaded by aliens from Mars.
"It sounded horrible at times," said Evans-Haumesser, referring to the sound quality.
But to Tristan Wehner, an actor, the play that caused mass panic was just "eerie."
Evans-Haumesser was attempting to get the students in the correct frame of mind to act and produce two one-act radio classics written by Lucille Fletcher in the 1940s: Sorry, Wrong Number and The Hitch-Hiker, opening today at the Marcia P. Hoffman Performing Arts Institute at Ruth Eckerd Hall at the Murray Studio Theater.
All the teens are participating in a production workshop which is part of the Adventures in the Arts youth program.
All needed to take a break from the Internet and cable TV and anything to do with 2003 to do these plays.
"I was trying to give them a sense of isolation, like they are isolated in that room," said Evans-Haumesser, the director. "Their power of imagination has been diminished in this society. We feed them everything visually."
When she says "that room," she means the room where poor, neurotic Mrs. Stevenson lay helpless and alone in Sorry, Wrong Number, her only link to the outside world a fancy gold and white phone.
Through it, she overhears two people planning a murder, but whose?
She also wanted them to sense what it may have been like for the Ronald Adams character in The Hitch-Hiker. He was a lonely 26-year-old man who was leaving his mother's house for the first time and taking a cross-country journey from Brooklyn to California only to encounter a strange hitchhiker along the way.
"I'm playing him like a 17-year-old trapped in a 26-year-old body," said Wehner, 18. "I try to make him extremely insecure about himself and the world. In my mind's eye, he was completely new to the world."
During the 25-minute play, Wehner "drives" a custom-built golf cart fashioned to look like a 1957 turquoise and white Chevrolet from Brooklyn to Gallup, N.M. It has a working horn and headlights for effect.
"When he sees the hitch-hiker, it is pouring rain," said Wehner. "There was nothing sinister about him . . ."
Get your tickets now for "Wake Up Call: An Evening of One Acts" at 7:30 p.m. today and Saturday at Murray Studio Theater in the Marcia P. Hoffman Performing Arts Institute at Ruth Eckerd Hall. A group of students there will perform The Hitch-Hiker and Sorry, Wrong Number by Lucille Fletcher. Tickets are $7. Ruth Eckerd Hall is at 1111 McMullen-Booth Road, Clearwater. For information, call (727) 791-7400.
