When Denison’s theatre program began planning its season, the faculty asked themselves how they could give students more opportunities for growth. One answer was to step back.
“We often have assistant directors on our projects,” Visiting Assistant Professor Braxton Rae said. “What if we create something where we take that to the next level, where we let them, a group of students, actually direct a play?”
That is the idea behind Denison’s upcoming mainstage production of LOVE/SICK: 90-minutes divided among five student directors. While the idea of multiple directors working within a singular piece might evoke images of chaos, Rae said, “This play specifically lends itself to the form.”
Written as 10 separate but interconnected vignettes, LOVE/SICK moves through different experiences of love. Each scene is almost a small play of its own, connected to a larger thematic whole.
“If you were ever going to do a play where you have multiple different directors who are all learning, this would be it,” actor Mason Bainbridge ’29 said.
Each director was given two scenes, but not just the ones they wanted. Rae asked what interested them, then paired those choices with scenes that offered a different directing challenge.
Erin Hartle ’27 gravitated toward a serious scene about two women navigating parenthood but was also handed an over-the-top comedy about wedding-day anxiety. Tionna Wear ’28 received one of her top choices, a physical comedy, alongside an intimacy-heavy opening scene that initially made her nervous but also overlapped with her career interest in intimacy direction.
The point was not for the five students to learn how Rae would direct LOVE/SICK.
“If I always dictate to them how I think something should be directed, then they’re just gonna turn into little Braxtons,” Rae said. “I want them to really flourish in their own artistry.”
This meant the student directors had the autonomy that any director would, with Rae serving as a mentor rather than a final authority.
“We get to choose our schedules,” Hartle said. “We got to choose our cast. We just have a lot of control over it. They have a lot of trust in us. So there’s pressure there too.”
Sitting through 95 auditions for a 15-person cast gave Hartle “such a huge appreciation for directors and the challenges of directing that I didn’t really comprehend before.”
For Wear, the experience shifted how she views directing. “It’s not just my vision,” she said. “I can encourage the students to mess around on stage and experiment and see what feels most natural for them … so that it’s like a collective vision.”
Working with student directors can also change the atmosphere of the rehearsals. Wear has noticed that both she and her actors grew more comfortable taking risks.
“I’m not afraid to fail,” she said, while her actors are “a lot more comfortable being silly.”
This informality doesn’t lessen the director’s authority. Bainbridge said he gave the student directors the same respect he would a faculty director.“They have a vision,” he said. “I’m gonna do my best to make that come true.”
Eventually, five directors and 10 scenes converged to become one LOVE/SICK.
For Hartle, the play captures the complexities of love and the people navigating it. For Wear, those individual experiences reveal something shared within the human experience.
“There’s no one way to love,” Bainbridge said. “It’s messy. It’s complicated. Everyone goes through it, but in their own way.”
For a play built around that idea, five different ways of directing may be exactly the point.
LOVE/SICK
By John Cariani
Directed by Denison students under the guidance of Visiting Assistant Professor Braxton Rae
LOVE/SICK is a collection of slightly twisted, completely hilarious short plays that explore the pain and joy of love. From couples who fall in love at first sight, to ones trying to spice up their lives, to one couple ready to call it quits, this play is full of imperfect lovers and dreamers trying to figure it out! This unromantic comedy speaks to the romantic in everyone.
LOVE/SICK (CARIANI) is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Dramatists Play Service. www.concordtheatricals.com.
Performance dates and times are as follows:
- Friday, Oct. 23, 7 p.m.
- Saturday, Oct. 24, 7 p.m.
- Sunday, Oct. 25, 2 p.m.
- Thursday, Oct. 29, 7 p.m.
- Friday, Oct. 30, 7 p.m.
- Saturday, Oct. 31, 7 p.m.
- Sunday, Nov. 1, 2 p.m.
The performance is free and open to the public; however, tickets are required at artsatdenison.ludus.com.
