In the harsh light of a small classroom on Cabell's third floor, 15 people are hard at work trying to piece together a scene for their upcoming performance. The desks are pushed to the back of the room and the small area that remains in the front suddenly becomes a stage. In this space, the 12 members of the cast of "Voices of the Class" work alongside the producer, fourth-year College student Rob Walker, and co-directors, fourth-year College student Katherine Goktepe and fourth-year College student Gretchen Downey, to rehearse for the fifth annual performance.
Of the thousands of applications the University receives each year, the Deans in the Admissions Office flag only a few hundred as "interesting," explained Walker. "Either they have interesting subject matter, or they're exceptionally well written, or just weird, or funny or anything that catches their eye as being unusual."
Only these 200 to 300 essays are then sent to Spectrum and its executive board for consideration. The executive board weeds out the few that just cannot work for theater performance. The cast receives the remaining essays. Each cast member has the summer months to pour over these essays and come up with ideas to turn them into scenes.
One week before the rest of the student body returns to the University, the cast is back in Charlottesville. During this intensive 50-hour work week the cast dissects each essay and creates a script.
"We read through them out loud and we brainstorm," Walker said. "Is there a certain word that caught our interest, or is there a phrase, or what might be the interesting thing about this essay. [They ask] what are all the kinds of things that are possible?"
Finally the cast sits in groups and actually begins the writing process. The cast completes the script, which consists of 19 scenes, at the end of the first week. The traditional rehearsal begins the next.
During this rehearsal the cast works together to memorize lines, make changes, cast specific parts and iron out any problems in the script. A typical rehearsal consists of time working on trouble scenes, followed by running the show. Despite the stressful, high-pressure environment, the cast remains calm. All cast members join in to decide what works and what doesn't.
Every participant not only acts, but also writes and directs.
"Everybody writes the scenes," Goktepe said. "I really wanted to do it [directing] with a collective mentality so that we weren't like dictator directors. We all want to make the show good."
The cast works day and night to ensure the performance upholds its high level year after year. And it's more work than you'd think, because the performances are not just a straight interpretation of the essays.
"If [the show] were just the 'Greatest Hits' of the undergraduate essays, it would be boring," Walker said. "It wouldn't be really theatrical or very interesting. But what we try to do is capture the spirit or the flavor of it."
That flavor is then added to a concoction brewed by the cast to be either something funny, moving or just out of the ordinary, something that really will grab the audience's attention.
Finally, the mixture is ready to hit the stage.
"A lot of what we try to do is to really use the essays as a jumping off point more than necessarily trying to use them as they are," Walker said. "It's very influenced by the essays but you couldn't say that each skit was an essay itself."
The show aims to highlight both the diversity of the first-year class, as well as the rich talent within the cast itself. Although at times the focus may shift to the cast's performance, away from the actual essays, in the end the show achieves both goals.
"We started out total performance and just sort of let the essays slide, but then we brought the essays back in because we felt that it needed to be more about the essays," Goktepe said. "People do come to see what their classmates are like. I'd say it's a very good mixture of both."
The show also will have a different focus than that of last year.
"Last year's show had a lot more generally cultural things as far as society goes and now we have more related to college and high school," second-year College student Julia Shebalkin said. "We're concentrating more on high school problems and looking forward to college versus 'How hip hop affects life' [like last year]."
But second-year College student Liz Urschel said it's impossible to compare the two distinctly different shows.
"I don't think you can compare really since every year the show is so different," Urschel said. "That's what I think is so wonderful about working on this show. The script is as much a product of the cast members as the actual performance. It really makes for a profoundly different show each time, and gets the cast really attached to their work."
And the cast does get attached. Staying up into the wee hours of the morning practicing and waking up early on a Saturday to do it all over again --the show becomes a part of you. According to Walker, the cast members who participate year after year add to the show's overwhelming success.
"We have some just hilarious scenes," Goktepe said. "People will be able to see what their class is like but at the same time people who aren't in the first-year class can just come and it'll be like Saturday Night Live, but better"
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