By Katie Sikorski
What do Ben Delaney, a biotechnology major and Karl Kern, a business administration major, have in common? Besides being sophomores, they are both heavily involved in theater at the College. Most recently, the two were involved in the College’s 12th annual Student Directed One-Act Festival presented by Sock & Buskin. Delaney directed one of the shows while Kern served as production manager.
As a director, Delaney was responsible for choosing a play that would work well on the College stage. After calling directing a "surreal" experience, Delaney described his show, "At Sea" as "being about relationships and how they can be so good at one point and can so quickly decay." Although he has been involved with technical and backstage aspects of theater since high school, this was his first attempt at directing.
Delaney said his biggest success at directing was "being able to convey thoughts through the actors to the audience." He also said that he was successful in developing the relationships between the actors on stage. On the other hand, Delaney said, "It was very difficult to go from doing all technical work to directing. In the tech rehearsal I just had to sit there. I couldn’t say or do anything [and] that was difficult."
Despite having an untraditional mixture of interests — a biotech major and a theater minor — Delaney said that the two are what he truly loves. "I absolutely love biotech, but should it not work out, theater is the only other thing I would want to do," he said.
While Delaney directed a play, Kern served as production manager for the entire One Act Festival. As production manager he was in charge of overseeing all the lighting and sound cues during the shows and making sure actors were on stage at the proper time. He explains his job as "almost the same as a stage manager," but with more responsibilty.
Kern was also in charge of producing the program, posters and publicity for the event. He said, "As a management student, [the production manager position] took my theater interest and tied the two together."
Kern began his involvement in theater at the College as a freshman when he lived on the Freshman Interest Group (FIG) Theater floor in Founders. After taking Professor Sevareid’s Introduction to Theater class in his first semester, Kern was introduced to the theater minor and Barry Fritz, the Leffler Chapel & Performance Center technical manager, and an adjunct faculty member in the division of Fine and Performing Arts. The rest is history.
Delaney and Kern have worked for Fritz doing technical work for performances presented by the theater department, in addition to performances at Leffler Chapel and Performance Center since their freshman years. Both reiterated how happy they are to have had the opportunity to work for Fritz. The opportunities and contacts Delaney and Kern have made through him have given them the ability to expand upon their technical expertise while working for such groups as American Music Theater and Fulton Opera House.
Delaney said that he and Kern only had a one-year training period last year working with Fritz’s other now-graduated employees. "As freshmen we could expand on everything" Kern said. "Now Barry is letting us take on more after we took the [Theater] Design course." According to Delaney, he and Kern are "very grateful to be able to see and do so much."
During theater design, the designer and director come together and work on a look for the show. For example, Kern explained that last spring’s production of "Starmites" took the images of bubble gum and skateboards and worked those ideas into the production. One day Delaney and Kern both hope to be able to produce a completely student-designed production from beginning to end. According to Delaney, "It could do a lot for the [theater] program."
No matter what theater events may come between now and Kern’s and Delaney’s graduation, you can expect to see them behind the stage. Both their experience and their enthusiasm bring a distinctive mark to the Etown theater.