Collegio Online

Issue date: 1/31/08 Section: After Hours

Media Credit: photos by Teresa Gawrych After pleading with her mom for permission to play with the gate clerk, right, Ross Stone, sophomore in communication, Miller-Downing anxiously awaits her mother's response.

Media Credit: photos by Teresa Gawrych Peering over his shoulder, Roy Hatcher, left, looks at Lucy Miller-Downing, senior in communication, after she incessantly asks him "why?" In this scene, Miller-Downing portrays a young child who tries to befriend and relentlessly talk to and question everyone in the airport terminal.

Media Credit: photos by Teresa Gawrych After convincing the janitor, Austin Laverty, right, to turn his glasses upside down, the airport traffic controller, Todd Hoover, senior in communication, asks him if he can see the floor better during the Starving Artists' production of "Gate 23" at the PSU Studio Theater Saturday evening. This new theater group "strives to excel in our craft through service and dedication for the greater good of our community."

PSU's own "starving artists" raised $172 for Wesley House with their comedic improvisational play "Gate 23" on Friday and Saturday night. The performers charged $1 per ticket and donated the proceeds to Wesley House, a Pittsburg outreach agency for the poor.

"I was expecting maybe 20 people a night and all of a sudden it just exploded," Lucy Miller-Downing, junior in communication, said. "I didn't want to just give Wesley House $8."
Miller-Downing came up with the idea for the event and discussed it with Todd Hoover, graduate student in communication.

"I introduced it to Todd at Pizza Hut one day, and he said, 'Let's do it,'" Miller-Downing said.

From that point, Miller-Downing and Hoover discussed potential ideas for their production.

"We thought about different settings that would be good for improv because you have to find something that's open," Miller-Downing said. "We decided on an airport."

The play consisted of back-to-back scenes in an airport terminal over the span of one day. The performers portrayed humorous situations, including whining children, anal-retentive security guards and giddy couples. What made this production different from others was that the humor came from the performers themselves.

"We had the structure; we knew what everything was going to be but we'd change characters every night," Austin Laverty, junior in communication, said. "You'd never know what everyone was going to say. There's no dialogue. You have to feed off of everyone else while at the same time staying in your character."
Ross Stone, sophomore in communication, said that he and the other performers enjoyed spending time together.

"It was really fun," Stone said. "It was really energetic, and I think that we all just have a good time being with each other and hanging out and that shows."

Preparation was minimal, Miller-Downing said, with rehearsals lasting only three weeks before the show.

"Some of the scenes developed without any rehearsals," Miller-Downing said. "Like 'let's try this and let's try that.' We all are very much in the moment and it's like regular conversation. We're corky."

Angella Curran, graduate student in education, said that the actors involved were a mix of past and current communication majors and that almost everyone in the play has taken an improvisational class.

"It started out with just people who had had improv before," Curran said. "But we are trying to incorporate other people."
Although the event was Miller-Downing's creation, she said that without the actors who put it together, it would have remained just an idea.

"Everybody has thoughts, but you have to have other people," Miller-Downing said. "I feel like for everybody that was involved, it was theirs, too."

Because the performance was such a success, Miller-Downing said, she hopes to try it again for other charities.

"We were hoping that if it was successful then we could keep things going and obviously it was really successful," she said. "The audience really fuels our adrenaline."

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