IndiaParentMagazine

One-Act Play Festival

Friday, February 8 at 7:30 pm

Saturday, February 9 at 7:30 pm

The 2019 One-Act Play Festival is sponsored by the Mountain View Performing Arts Committee. This year's festival brings for your enjoyment professionally-produced, High School -acted and directed vignettes from Neil Simon's The Good Doctor. The mostly comic piece is based on short stories and other works by Anton Chekhov and is set, for this production, during the Jazz Age of the 1920's. The stories are droll, the portraits affectionate, the humor infectious, and the fun unending. Directors include Braden Koch, Swati Goel, Aubrie Ferris, and Sam Evans. Each director was assigned a mentor for one-on-one professional guidance throughout the process including vignette selection, auditions/casting, collaboration on constructing an overall vision for the piece as a whole, and marketing/publicity for the performances.  This is the 4th iteration of this program that will perform at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. This performance is approximately 2 hours long with one 15 minute intermission and is appropriate for all ages.

 “The Good Doctor” by Neil Simon
Braden will be directing A Defenseless Creature
Swati will be directing The Audition
Aubrie will be directing The Drowned Man
Sam will be directing The Seduction

SecondStage at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts

500 Castro Street, Mountain View, CA 94041

$10 all tickets

BUY TICKETS: http://tickets.mvcpa.com/20191acts

Tickets & Information: 650-903-6000 or mvcpa.com

Ticket price includes $2 Facility Use Fee
Other fees, depending on method of purchase, may apply

Everyone regardless of age must have a ticket, no lap passes are available for this performance

For interviews and/or more information on this program including any of its participants please reach out to Carol Donahue at carol.donahue18@gmail.com, 312-925-6926

** Photo Credit Shonda Ranson

Director Bios
Aubrie Ferris is a senior at Woodside High School in Woodside. She started acting in third grade, but in high school discovered that her true passion lies in directing. For the past four years she has helped direct the plays at her prior middle school, North Star Academy.  The spring of her junior year she independently produced, managed, and directed The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [abridged] with an all-female high school cast. Aubrie loves the intimacy between the actors, the audience, and the story in live theater, and she hopes to continue exploring this unique relationship in her next major step in life, college. Aubrie will be directing The Drowned Man.

Swati Goel is a junior at Gunn High School in Palo Alto. She's been performing since fifth grade, and has developed a deep love of theater through her experiences at the PACT and the theater program at her school. Last fall, she wrote the play Raavan, a retelling of an Indian epic, an ancient story central to her culture. The play performed at both Cubberley Theater and the Palo Alto Arts Center, and at the second venue, she directed. A fervent believer in the power of theater to tell stories, she is looking forward to being part of the One-Act festival this year! Swati will be directing The Audition.

Braden Koch is a senior at Los Altos High School and has been acting since the age of 6. He is a member of his school’s advanced acting group, Broken Box Theatre Company where he is an actor and Publicity/Film Manager.  Braden has extensive experience with Peninsula Youth Theatre as an actor performing in over 45 productions and as a stage manager, assistant director, and media designer. Braden is also currently creating promotional videos for PYT’s "Stories on Stage" program and will be directing a film for his Film Analysis class in the spring. Braden is thankful for how theatre has positively impacted his life, particularly how it has helped build his confidence and leadership skills. Braden is excited about the opportunity to direct his first one-act in collaboration with the city of Mountain View and the Performing Arts Committee. Braden will be directing A Defenseless Creature.

Sam Evans and is a senior at Mountain View High School. She has loved theatre ever since she was cast as Viola in William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.” when she was 11. She then fell in love with directing when she received the opportunity to direct the short musical “21 Chump Street” by Lin-Manuel Miranda for her school’s showcase last spring. She has also directed “Dog Sees God” for the teen-run company Upstage Theater, and through this production, she has learned that teenage actors are some of the most devoted, creative, and inspiring people. Sam will be directing The Seduction.

Mentors
Vineet Gupta
graduated from Stanford University with a double major in Theater & Performance Studies and Mathematics, and is currently pursuing a coterminal masters degree at Stanford, studying migration through data analysis. He has directed five student productions to date (including Kushner's Angels in America, and Cowhig's The World of Extreme Happiness, his thesis project), acted in several others, and otherwise served as the Artistic Director (2016-17) of the Stanford Asian American Theater Project. 

Saya Jenks is delighted to be working with such driven high school directors! Saya teaches Drama and English at the Nueva Upper School in San Mateo. Prior to teaching at Nueva, Saya worked at the Goodman Theater in Chicago and trained at American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. A Stanford graduate with a B.A. in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, Saya served as the Artistic Director of the Stanford Asian American Theatre Project (AATP), performed in and directed many productions at Stanford, and studied British drama abroad at the University of Oxford.

Eliseo Valerio graduated from Stanford in June with a degree in Theater and Performance Studies and a minor in Classics. As a student, he acted in various productions including Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Evita, Hamlet, The Tempest, and most recently, Life is a Dream. He also studied in Paris and New York, where he got the opportunity to work with various artists and theater organizations including The New Victory Theater and Second Stage. He currently serves as the Student Engagement Coordinator for the Office of the Vice President for the Arts at Stanford. He hopes to be a theater educator one day

Ray Chan is a thespian at heart and was one of the City of Mountain View's PAC members who originally started the High School One-Act Festival. Having recently retired from the corporate rat race after 40+ years, mostly in product management/marketing, he now enjoys providing career management advice for Santa Clara University graduate business students.  He also conducts professional skills development workshops by incorporating acting techniques and exercises. Early in his business career, Ray performed locally on stage in several musicals and drama productions as well as directed a few plays, all in the Mountain View Los Altos area.