The Nicholls Players are sponsoring one-act plays, written and performed by students on campus. Auditions are March 25 and 26, and no props are needed. I personally won’t be entering, but here are five of my screenplay ideas. I’m not familiar with theatre, but that doesn’t bar myself, or anyone else, from auditioning for the experience. Here’s what I can come up with, an example of some of the content you might see during one of the acts:

My first idea is an original drama of life as a college student. Most of the audience will be college students anyway. We all understand what it’s like to be in college, and it is hard. There are a million different ways to write the main character. A single parent, a veteran, someone who works two jobs while being a full-time student, a student fighting mental or physical illness or some other form of a non-traditional student. A student character is easily relatable, considering I am one and I see hundreds of them every single day. 

For my nerdy idea, I’d love to see a Dungeons and Dragons (D&D)-style play. D&D dominates right now since its revival in Stranger Things. It plays so well over podcast format, where the set is only limited to what you can picture in your mind. A set with props and a cast acting the game out would really be the thing to bring a campaign to life. Even a simple campaign like three warriors on their way to fight a dragon would be so much fun to watch when put on by fellow Nicholls students.

Because I recently watched The Truman Show, I’d love to see somebody’s take on that. What would it be like to live in what is pretty much a fish tank? Would you act like Truman? Would you ever even notice that your entire life is a simulation? Maybe even if you did notice, you’d just give up and live there forever. I’d be most excited to see a student’s take on the ending. I won’t spoil anything, but what would it look like? The set would be easy to create, as well, with the most suburban, working-class American aesthetics possible.

This one may only be funny to me, but I’d pay money to see it created. We all know The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Somebody from Philly is dropped into a completely different lifestyle. The show thrives off of Will Smith’s character’s wild reactions to the wild situations that the upper-class gets into. My idea is a recreation of this, but with someone from Chackbay. Even if he’s dropped into a family exactly like Fresh Prince, I’d love to see somebody from Chackbay bring shrimp boots to a mansion.

My last idea is a genuine story that I’d like to try and make. It’s called “Apples and Cinnamon,” and it’s about two men who grow up together. As young boys, they’re inseparable, playing in the sand all day and talking on walkie talkies all night. As they grow up, they go to high school together, and one realizes he’s in love with the other. Once they graduate, they go their separate ways, neither of them ever single and free to explore the feelings they had for each other in their youth. Because I’m a big baby, I’d make a happy ending, of course, but if you’re putting this on, feel free to change whatever you want.

If you’re a screenwriter or actor thinking of auditioning, do it! The world becomes a better place when you share your art with the world. Feel free to use any of these ideas, but at least put me in the credits. Break a leg!