By: Ashton Newton
Entertainment Editor

Western students have been hard at work on the upcoming theater production “All In The Timing.” Written by David Ives, “All In The Timing” is a set of six one-act plays that focus on wordplay. The play is directed by Western’s own, Dr. Kent Neely, and also stars six Western students.

Each one-act has its own characters and comedic style, so each actor gets to play multiple characters throughout the production.

“Each of the one acts heavily relies on the absurdity of language, specifically talking about [Universal Language] we literally speak gibberish for about half of it,” said Lindsay Spear, a junior in the Bachelor of Fine Arts acting program and cast member.

The one-acts featured in “All In The Timing” include “The Philadelphia,” “Universal Language,” “Mere Mortals,” “Sure Thing,” “Words Words Words” and “Variations on the Death of Trotsky.”

“They’re all really funny. David Ives was a smart guy and he really used that to create comedy. That’s a big part of it. It’s just a really enjoyable show,” said Nick Hulscher, a sophomore in the Bachelor of Fine Arts theater program and cast member.

Asked about working with the rest of the cast, Spear responded, “Everybody has brought their own style of comedy to it. Since we’re all playing different characters, it’s nice to see how everyone handles different characters and different one-acts.”

“There’s only six of us, so we were almost all there every night for rehearsals and since we all already knew each other and it was such a small group, we got close really quickly and that let us connect on more of a personal level in the scenes,” added Hulcher.

Recounting her favorite part of being on the cast, Spears adds, “‘Universal Language’ is probably one of the the hardest plays I’ve ever been in because I start off speaking English, but as it goes on I speak more and more of this gibberish language Unamunda and at one point we’re supposed to scat in this Unamundan language and the one day we finally got it right we both started screaming. It was so much fun.”

“It’s not a series show. You should go into it expecting to laugh. Don’t expect some serious tragedy because it’s really the opposite,” said Hulcher. He describes the set as a comedy club with a brick wall in the background.

“All in the Timing” runs in the Rice Auditorium Black Box studio Feb. 9-11 at 7:30 p.m. with an additional 2:00 performance on the 11th. Tickets are $14 or $8 for a Western student.

Contact the author at journalentertainment@wou.edu