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Ride a Train to Nowhere? Strange Things Can Happen While Writing a One-Act Play 

Walk into the room as Kacie England starts class, and you might hear her ask students about their weekends, what they’re reading for fun, or what fascinates them at the moment.

Though it might seem like frivolous chatter, the exercise is actually quite intentional.

If students don’t feel part of a comfortable community while in her Advanced Studies: Literature and Composition class, how will they be able to share their work with classmates? 

“If we can’t talk about our weekends together, then we certainly can’t talk about this fictional world you crafted and created, and how you’re going to bring that to life, because that feels deeply personal to many,” England said. “Creating something of your own implies that you as the writer have something important to say. When you’re putting this idea out in the world, it’s of your own creation, it’s your brainchild, and sharing it with others can feel a little scary and intimidating.”

Take for instance a recent assignment where students were tasked with writing a one-act play that investigates and confronts existential themes, ones that examine individual freedom, choice, and the search for meaning in a seemingly indifferent or absurd world.

“What does it look like to create something and then to have your peers give you feedback in a way that’s helpful, valuable, considerate?” England asked. Her students were about to find out in a safe, structured way. “I’m excited because I think this project also does a really nice job of emulating a workshop environment.”

Students were instructed that their one-act plays should address one of England’s supplied prompts, which included a café where characters interact and converse, a mirror where characters confront versions of themselves or alternate realities, a waiting room where characters face judgment or resolution, and an absurd dinner party where characters find themselves in a surreal scenario. Students also had the option to propose their own settings for the 500-word plays.

Sisi Guo ’25 chose to combine two of the prompts, the mirror and the café.

“I’m making the site in the café, according to the first prompt, and I’m tweaking it a little bit, so rather than meeting other people, the main characters meet different versions of themselves, which is what the mirror prompt is,” Guo said. “And I want it to be that the barista calls out a name, and they all have the same name because they’re all different versions of themselves.”

Louisa Gunkelman ’25 chose the waiting room scenario.

“I feel like there’s a lot of existential themes that you could have go along with being in a waiting room for the afterlife, in terms of choices to make and such,” Gunkelman said, noting that writing a play is challenging. “It’s kind of hard getting started. When you have a blank page, it’s a little bit daunting to look down and have a lot of thoughts but not a way to formulate them. So I think that’s just kind of getting over that barrier. Starting to write is the biggest difficulty.”

The assignment coincided with the students’ reading of Albert Camus’ The Stranger, and was to include at least three thoughtful and skillfully executed allusions to Camus’ work, along with a “playwright’s note” that detailed how the one-act play explores existential ideas and connects to The Stranger.

Toward the end of the project, New York City playwright Mallory Jane Weiss visited the class for a workshop session.

Weiss led the class through a circle reading of two of the students’ one-act plays in the Burgin Center for the Arts’ Hale Theatre. 

One of the plays was The Last Ride of the Nowhere Express by Ava Guzic ’25, who chose a train station for her setting.

“Existentialism is a lot about the search for meaning, and this endless search that you’re trying to find meaning in life,” Guzic said. “Turning that into a literal journey could be a good way to show that.”

Weiss said that if asked to describe Guzic’s play, she’d say, “A man boards a train to nowhere and realizes that meaning comes from what we do and our own actions.”

Wondering if the character’s name was a nod to a theological pondering, Weiss commended Guzic for choosing the name Theo.

“One of the things that delighted me about this was that I love watching a character make a decision or come to a new realization,” said Weiss, who walked the students through the readings and a critique session.

She invited them to offer “delighted” feedback to the author, then encouraged the author to ask questions of the audience, and finally had the audience ask questions of the author.

“What I really admire about Mercersburg are the ways that we are connected to a larger community of professionals,” England said, adding that the students received the playwright’s feedback well and were eager to apply it to their work.

“Even if our students aren't leaving Mercersburg with this goal of being a creative writer,” England said, “I truly believe all of our students are capable of creative endeavors.”