After the success of South’s 2024 fall play, Our Town, and before the 2025 spring musical, The Little Mermaid, South’s Point Players put on a more ambitious and unorthodox-paced form of entertainment. One Acts is entirely created by the students in South’s Thespian Troupe 49, which involves five student-acted and directed short “one-act” plays. This year, each play highlighted the authenticity and passion for entertainment of the students of South.
Starting the night off with I Hate Hamlet, directed by Aliana Ritter ’25, who you might know as Emily Webb from fall’s Our Town, is a high-energy comedy. Starring Ritter’s Our Town co-star Zach Neme ’26 as Andrew and Edmund Shall ’25 as Andrew’s idol-turned phantom-turned therapist, Barrymore. Next up, the Jolina Hutchingson-directed outlandish comedy, The Twitch which follows Oscar Deluca ’27 and Violet King ’26’s portraying the paranoid Don and Nancy interacting with the odd neighbors that just moved in.
After a short intermission, Allison Thomas ’25 brings the witty dramedy Fourteen to the stage. with a cast of only three people, Ellie Sahutske ’26, Violet Lincicome ’26, and Verity Suson ’28 as Mrs. Pringle, Elaine, and Dunham respectively The audience watches as the three stand over a luxurious dinner table, waiting for their esteemed guests to arrive for a party. While the One Acts traditionally highlight students directing professionally-written plays, In the next play, Joshua Sonnenberg ’25 broke the norm this year. Writing and directing A Dance With the Devil, a short, three-person play taking a lighthearted stance on signing your soul away to get away with murder. Finally, completing the lineup with Harper’s Locket, director Alex Cline ’25 ends the night with a bang, incorporating physical comedy and sound effects to complement the largest cast of the night, leaving the crowd wheezing.
What’s so special about One Acts isn’t the exhilarating on-screen chemistry between Neme and Shall in I Hate Hamlet. It isn’t the unexpected twists and turns or hilarious, confident performance by Finnegan Wallace ’27 in The Twitch, the societal critiques through comedy Thomas and her actors brought to the stage in Fourteen, or the impressively bold script brought to life by Sonnenberg in A Dance With the Devil. It isn’t even perfect comedic timing of the crew members behind the curtain during every show, Harper’s Locket especially. What’s so special about One Acts is the opportunity for this talented group of students to showcase their enthusiasm and abilities in entertainment. Even more important is how the students grabbed this opportunity by the reins, captivating the audience similarly to how the non-student-led fall play was able to.
The genuine passion of the Pointe Players is something to be taken seriously, to say the least. Their dedication should not go unnoticed, deserving to be recognized past the capacity of the crowd. I for one am very glad I attended the One Acts, and not to speak for others, but the audience certainly sounded that way as well.
