For the first time, the Meadville Community Theater is giving students full control of a production on their stage with the debut of “It’s Not All About Sex (Or Is It?),” by Professor Emeritus of Psychology Joshua Searle-White.
The show, directed by Victoria Smith, ’23, stars alex martin, ’24, and Mycah Quevillon, ’25. Kaki Lynch, ’22 is the stage manager and light board operator.
“(The play) is about navigating and talking about sex, kind of bringing it out of the stigmatization from it, and also talking about consent and relationships in general, but in a comedic way,” Quevillon said.
“(The play) also covers the embarrassment, and how to deal with all of that,” martin added. “Dating, sex, relationships, all of it can be scary, but we all deal with it, it’s okay.”
Designed as a series of vignettes — a collection of smaller scenes that typically have a common thread or throughline — written by Searle-White before the COVID-19 pandemic, Searle-White’s vision at the time was to have a production in the MCT with a professional director as well as himself starring in it. However, Searle-White later decided that a student-centered production would be a better fit.
“It’s very, very rewarding to be trusted with this,” Smith said. “To be the first people that are doing a student production in the community theater, that’s a super big and I really hope that this relationship (between the MCT and the Playshop Theater) lasts. I think it’s important to get our students involved in the community and the community aware of our students.”
Smith has been in the theater acting since she was a child but only began to dabble in directing during her sophomore year of college. After taking a class on directing, mostly by happenstance, she discovered that she enjoyed it and had a talent for it.
Smith has continued acting at Allegheny, recently starring in the fall production of “Bikeman,” as well as props manager in other productions in the fall with the Playshop Theater.
Smith said that her first foray into directing an official production on her own has had a difficult learning curve.
“(It has been) daunting in some ways and extremely fun in other ways,” Smith said.
Smith explained that the process was made easier because of the support she has received from martin, Quevillon and Searle-White — who is acting as producer — as well as MCT Marketing Chair Sylvia Cagle.
The play itself is a bit unusual, routinely breaking the fourth wall, and having the actors interact with the audience. The “fourth wall” is a concept in theater that separates the audience from the actors and what they are doing on stage, like an imaginary or transparent screen that in most plays, and most media for that matter, is not crossed. The actual script of the play is used as a prop and referenced in the play as the script of the play.
“It gets confusing but (in this production Quevillon and I are) actors, pretending to be actors, on stage acting out different scenes,” martin said.
They explained that multiple dimensions of acting will be occuring within the play at any given moment, a factor that also makes it unlike others.
Smith, Quevillon and martin are all also all involved with the Playshop’s upcoming production of “She Kills Monsters,” which will run from April 28 to May 1. A comedic drama written by Qui Nguyen and directed by kt shorb, the play follows protagonist Agnes through a Dungeons & Dragons quest left behind by her recently deceased sister.
“It’s Not All About Sex (Or Is It?)” opens on March 11 and runs through the weekend. Standard tickets are $13, $11 for senior citizens and $5 for a student with a valid ID.