Each March, a group of seniors finishing up their degrees from in Theater Arts direct, perform in and create pieces for the department's Senior Thesis Festival. Unlike other written theses, playwrights must devise their concept and a large portion of their script before their senior year. They draft a piece that stems from their passions,  then, over their last two semesters at Brandeis, they workshop, edit and revise their work. In the winter, the department holds open auditions and after about two months of rehearsal, more revisions and working to coordinate the production of numerous other pieces in one space, the festival finally opens.
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This year, there are six seniors participating in the festival. While Jason Dick, Lizzy Benway and Levi Squier decided to direct, act in, and devise pieces already in the theatrical cannon, Justy Kosek, Grace Fosler and Emma Lieberman elected to examine topics they care about by writing original plays. Earlier this week, I sat down with each of them to learn more about their projects.
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I asked them how the process has affected them and where they think it may lead. Fosler said, "This has really solidified my decision to pursue play-writing. I'm applying to graduate programs for creative writing with a concentration in script writing. It has taught me a lot about just the writing process in general." In fact, her work is already being produced elsewhere. The Elephant in the Room will be featured at the PortFringe festival, a week-long theater festival in Portland, Maine this June.
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Kosek says, "[this process has] definitely affected me. I guess what I've realized is that it's a much bigger thing to translate an idea from one person's head into a lot of people's heads than I ever imagined. That's very different from acting-you have to fit a role when you're acting and find a niche when you're directing. But when you're a playwright and sharing your work and working on your work with people it's a much more intense process than I knew."
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"It's given me a new kind confidence in myself," says Lieberman. "I am a published playwright and it's work that I can be proud of and it's work that I can display everyone. Not that I'm not proud of other things I have done, but this is on a whole new level. On top of that it's helped me connect to writing theater on a whole new level that I hadn't quite reached. It's increased my confidence and increased my ability by leaps and bounds. It's something I can take forward with me to the rest of my career."
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Catch these pieces and all of the work being showcased at the senior festival Tuesday, March 18, through Saturday, March 23, in the Spingold Theater Center's Laurie Theater. Find the full schedule on Facebook and on the Brandeis Theater Company website.
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Emma Lieberman '14
Emma Lieberman's '14 play, My Morning, addresses perhaps the most personal topic. "A bit more than three years ago, here at Brandeis there was a girl who took her own life. She was a friend of mine, so this play is technically fictionalized but it's about the experience of dealing with that," Lieberman said in an interview with the Justice. She worked with her director Gabby Lamm '17 to strike a balance between fictionalizing her story and staying true to what actually happened. 
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Lieberman noted that her biggest challenge as an actress was "separating [herself] from something that is so personal and making it about someone else." If the play was about her, she said, "it would not only be tortuous for me, but also wouldn't work as well for the audience." 
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Lieberman said her greatest challenge as an actress and writer is separating what she calls "the multiple personalities of me." She said, "ordinarily there is the hierarchy of the playwright, who makes the show, the director, who follows what's in the script and the actor, who follows whatever the director says. But as I am both actor and playwright, those roles get switched around." 
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Lieberman and Lamm hold separate meetings with "Emma the Actress" and "Emma the Playwright" to create a clear system. "Every other time," explained Lieberman, "'Emma the Playwright' just goes away."
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Justy Kosek '14
Justy Kosek's '14 original play, All You Need, tells the story of a family torn apart. It begins with  the uncanny image of the son, David, walking into his room in a blood-stained tuxedo. 
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The rest of the play recounts what led to that moment and traces the history of his parents and friends. The themes focus on how different kinds of love affect a family and an individual,
Kosek started writing All You Need for fun when he was a first-year at Brandeis.
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"These are themes I'm sort of obsessed with," he said in an interview with the Justice. "Themes of memory and personal history are very interesting to me so I knew right away I wanted to do a piece about memory, and the way that we perceive memory and the way it differs from reality." 
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For Kosek, the challenging parts of the process have been consolidating his original vision with those of his director (Jonathan Young MFA '14) and design team. However, he told the Justice that this particular challenge was "also the most exciting part"
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 "[To have] people looking at my work and having opinions on it," he said, "it's honestly been the greatest thrill of my life." 
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Kosek says, "[this process has] definitely affected me. I guess what I've realized is that it's a much bigger thing to translate and idea from one person's head into a lot of people's heads than I ever imagined."
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Grace Fosler '14
Grace Fosler '14, whose project is titled The Elephant in the Room, both wrote and directed her thesis. "My play is a satire on animal cruelty and exploitation in the United States," she said. "I've been interested in animal rights for a very long time. I've felt like an advocate for them and felt that animal rights hadn't been explored in theater as much as I would like them to be. I think comedy and satire are very powerful tools and are a non-aggressive form of activism, which is something I think is very important." 
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Fosler's play, inspired by George C. Wolfe's 1986 play The Colored Museum, is a series of vignettes depicting different forms of animal abuse. Her concept, she said, is to humanize animals. When asked what challenges she faced, Fosler mentioned that at times she found it difficult to find the right way to portray the situation on stage, and throughout her process she realized how hard it is to write about something so close to your heart. When asked about her experience as both director and writer, she said "I kind of forget that I wrote the play while I'm directing it. At times I forget that if something isn't working I can change it. I have the power to go in and change things." But the most exciting part for Fosler is watching her play come to life. "When I finally put faces to my characters that was really, really exciting. They have come to life to me and that's awesome."
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