The theatre department put on the fall show Zap!, Oct 20 and 22. The show represented high arts meeting short attention spans. The show combined seven different plays all happening as if the audience was controlling the changes like flipping through different television shows. Some members of the audience were even given a remote control.

The seven plays were an English mystery, a comedy, Shakespeare’s Richard III, a Russian play, an avant-garde play, the southern play and a performance art monologue. Each play is masterfully intertwined between buzzes and play changes.

The first signs of trouble happen with the Performance Art Monologue as a self-pronounced truth teller spouts off knowledge of the actors in the other plays. This affects mainly the mystery as it is discovered that the man playing Reverend Smythe abuses his wife, that Clifford is a transvestite, and that Colonel Hardwicke has a lucky rabbit that he has to pet before each entrance. The actors who played these parts: Zach Young, Aaron Sturk and Ty Gaddison displayed an excellent balance expressing both the awkwardness and anger their characters would feel having their secrets exposed to fellow cast members, spouses and a room full of strangers.

As the play progressed the anxiety of the actors began to build as they were kicked off stage, dismissed by buzzers. At one point Richard III, Shea Stanford, yells at the crew and threatens them so that they can perform their scene. Stanford embodied the role of the Shakespearean king perfectly. As he was repeatedly buzzed off the stage he was able to react in a way that made it feel like it wasn’t scripted.

The actors who were cast in Zap! pulled this off perfectly making it seem as though they were really being controlled by the buzzers instead of being scripted. Each person was able to embody their characters in the short amount of time they were on stage and reflected the agitation the buzzers cause.