High Note was informed a while back about a handful of mostly performing arts students who had something to say. So, rather than conducting extensive interviews and prying it out of them, we simply asked them to tell us about it.

About the play. About themselves. About their experience. About what makes them nuts. This is what they wrote:

“Last Chance”

Greg Jerrett

The first draft of “Last Chance” was written in five hours one Saturday afternoon. I had a bottle in my hand the entire time which made typing difficult, but not impossible.

Booze is my demon and my muse. The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and sweet, sweet liquor fuels MY fire, baby. Don’t let anyone tell you nothing good comes from substance abuse because that is just a lie. A GODDAMN lie!

The rewrites just about killed me. They took forever. I tapped into a lot of personal issues to make this mother scratcher fly and when you do that, pain and damage are your only co-pilots.

“Last Chance” is about reconciliation. It’s about a father and a son who are more alike than either one cares to admit. The father is dying, and the son wants to come to terms with some “issues” from the past. They fight and there is a lot of angst, but it’s pretty funny in places. My mother said so.

I hope people will want to call their parents after seeing this thing. I hope my family gets it and doesn’t use this as an excuse to cut me off from our vast textiles fortune.

I hope to get paid to write for the rest of my life; otherwise, I will be very unhappy. The high school play market is pretty good. I have an idea for a high school play that I am tentatively calling “Jenny’s First Abortion.” It’s about a high school girl who has an abortion and learns a very important lesson about life or friendship or something.

I write from a very dark place deep down inside of myself where I am soft like a woman. I am a good listener but have never known the love of another human being. I am hoping this play will change all of that.

My deepest fear is that I will be sent to prison for a crime I did not commit. I am too delicate for the joint. I wouldn’t make it.

I hope everyone comes out to see this play and takes a little piece of me with them. I will be handing out little pieces of myself after the play served on Ritz crackers.

I want to thank Gregg Henry and Jane Cox for seeing something in this project. Thanks to every member of my cast; You’re hard-core. And props to Ben Godar for kicking my ass when he didn’t have to.

“The Last”

David Byrd

In February of this year I was reading a copy of the Daily over lunch. I read a column on the opinion page from a writer that in my estimation considered herself to be a “holy” person.

The point of her column was all of humanity was condemned to eternal damnation for their evil nature. She took very serious issues of today’s society, and using socially acceptable criteria of Biblical times, passed her judgment on humanity.

I disagreed with her column and those that followed, not solely because of their content, but because she had taken the rights of God and used them to her advantage. In my opinion, she said in her column she was so confident in her religious beliefs that she could interfere with the individual relationships between God and humanity. She was condemning souls.

Not too long ago, hundreds of outraged protesters had formed outside a church with signs quoting scripture from the Bible that spoke against sin. They sang old hymns that spoke of repentance, asking of forgiveness and humility before God. They pleaded, they cursed, and they damned.

They judged a man because he was a homosexual ,and he happened also to be the pastor of the church. Their argument was that a man who committed such a terrible sin had no right to preach the word of God to others. The one phrase that they seemed to have forgotten was “He who is without sin, cast the first stone.”

Again, humans took the rights of God and used them to their advantage. They were condemning a soul. Thousands of times every day, someone on this earth feels so confident and safe within his or her religious beliefs to “preach” to another human being. That spiritual intervention may be positive, but in most cases, it is not.

Priests do it, pastors do it, theologians do it, television evangelists do it — they condemn souls.

“The Last” is about a normal, average man who dies, and an Angel appears informing him that he is the last soul on earth who has not decided in his religious beliefs. The Angel reveals his identity as a man who has chosen to believe in God when it suits his best interests, but in the privacy of his own spirit, he doesn’t know what to believe.

The Angel then goes on to tell him he has been selected to make a choice for humanity, whether we live in eternal paradise or eternal damnation. His choice is more complicated than just picking between good and evil, but you’ll have to come see the show to find out why.

Ask yourself this question: What if you were called upon to make this choice? What if someone like those who were involved in the above events was called upon to make this choice?

How does that make you feel? I wrote this play because I wanted to ask that very same question to everyone of this world that views themselves as “holy” people. Before you make the choice, are you really sure of what you believe? Is your soul free?

“Biographies”

Kelly Bartlett and Melissa Ham-Ellis

We have worked very closely within the dance and theatre departments on several productions throughout the past three years, including the productions of “Barjche” and “Perceptions.”

While working on a project for Modern Dance Composition class, Kelly ended up choreographing a duet for the two of us called “Bleeding Self Control to Bach’s Air in G,” which turned out to be the inspiration for “Biographies.”

It was suggested that we expand on the piece and submit it for consideration in “I’ve Got Something to Say.” The only catch was that this suggestion was made the day before the proposals and scripts were due. Needless to say, “Biographies” has morphed into something very different from our original proposal.

We are fairly unique among the other playwrights for several reasons. Our piece is based in movement, and while it includes other mediums, the movement aspect gives “Biographies” a slightly different flavor.

Also, because we submitted an idea as a proposal, and not a script, our process for developing the material was unlike the others. We were given a lot of freedom in our creative process, which allowed us to create and recreate as we went along, rather than work from a set script.

Throughout this process, we ventured from our initial intention to create a movement piece under the premise that actions speak louder than words. Our result is what we like to call a “performance piece,” encompassing other areas of the performing arts.

“Biographies” now includes text written by authors such as Milan Kundera, Anais Nin and George Eliot; music by Chopin, Veracini and others; and integration of the movement into Joe Powell’s set.

However, the music and text were chosen to coincide with our title, “Biographies,” which has not changed from the beginning of the process. We didn’t so much deviate from the original content as much as we found alternate ways to attain the finished product.

The origins of the title lie in our friendship and work with each other, and the idea that we are all effected by the people and situations we encounter in our lives. Everybody has a story, which will involve both positive and negative influences from others. But most importantly, we all rely on others to help us make it through this craziness we call life, whether it is easy for us to admit or not.

Being a rather broad topic, we relied on the text to isolate specific situations within the realm of our idea. The text created the framework, from which we were able to explore the movement aspect of the situations.

The music was incorporated to aid in the creation of a mood and atmosphere on stage, where the movement and text can take place.

“My Baby and I”

Ben Godar

I’ve been working on “My Baby and I” since roughly last December. Originally I planned on writing two short plays that would fit together thematically, of which “My Baby and I” would be the second. The first play never really came together, and when I found out about the Showcase of Student Writing, I decided I better focus on “My Baby.”

Writing and revising the play ended up being more difficult than I originally thought. At times the words flowed with the gentle elegance of an obstructed bowel movement. I kept working away, because I was confident I had a good story in my head, but what came out on paper often read more like a “Days of Our Lives” episode.

At times during the revision process I relied heavily on ideas and criticisms from others. I rarely look to other people for criticism — in fact, I generally brazenly purport my own ideas as the word of God. In this case, however, writing only my third play (and the first to be produced), I was insecure about my abilities.

Some of the suggestions I got were valuable. In hindsight, the 80-foot tall fire-breathing Alf and the Latin dance number were a bit over the top. But I wish I would have had a clearer idea of what I wanted the play to say before I started incorporating the ideas of others.

Thankfully a new play can keep evolving forever. I worked through at least four major revisions to get the play to the state it will be performed in, but I still have ideas for changes in the future.

Originally, I thought these characters warranted only a short play, but after watching rehearsals I see so much more potential in their story. Hopefully, someday I will flesh it out into a full-length play.

As it stands now, a lot occurs in the 35 minutes the play runs. It’s not an action packed story, rather it focuses on a common and perhaps mundane situation. I hope the audience will sympathize with the main characters, Joe and Mary. Their story is not unique, but hopefully it is in some way compelling.

My bigger hope is that people will come out to the theater and support these new artists and plays. It is a rare opportunity to watch the miracle of theatrical birth, and I hope people will seize it.

“Nuts”

Jason Taylor

I began writing plays in high school when I was plucked out of an English class by my drama coach and encouraged for my talent and sharp sense of humor.

Two plays were the product of my budding genius then, a western and a spoof on Julius Caesar, and what initially started as a hobby became a career choice for me.

Upon entering college, my work was spotted in Iowa State’s playwriting class and before no time, my play “Doing the Cleavers,” was presented at The Maintenance Shop.

This was quickly followed my second play, “Etta Spenser’s Soul,” and “Don’t Encourage Him,” my one-man show that won an award.

It is roughly at this point that writing stopped being fun for me and became what I describe as a tedious, meticulous, soul-draining experience.

My play, “Nuts,” will be presented at Fisher Theater this weekend. It was written two years ago in a five hour type-a-thon after an ISU Theater professor convinced me to enter a ten-minute play contest.

Frankly I haven’t read that script since I sobered up. The fact that I’d written anything beyond a book report shocked me considerably.