The Performing Arts + Community Center held the 37th annual One Acts Festival, featuring four short-form, student-written productions, from May 26 through 30. This year, Sara Xa-Chin ’26, Asher Albers ’26, Zoya Sarangan ’26 and Jack/Junie Froyd-Kamrath ’26 each wrote and directed their own One Acts show.

One Acts is a senior-only class offered in the spring term. In the winter term, One Acts students begin writing their scripts during the script-writing tutorial period classes before the directing process begins in the spring. “In One Acts, you learn different skills for teaching and directing,” said Xa-Chin, director of the One Act “Skeletons in the Closet.” “As a director, you have a lot of responsibilities. There’s a lot of thinking behind staging scenes in an interesting way. It has to be dynamic.”

Each show blended the genres of comedy and crime. “There’s often some sort of crime, robbery or murder,” drama teacher Maya Herbsman ’13 said. “[But] this year definitely takes some pretty different approaches to that.”

This year, the directors led 18 actors, each of whom auditioned in the first week of spring term. After auditions, directors met and determined cast lists based on actors’ preferences and how well they fit the role for each show. “[One Acts] gets different people involved than the same people that tend to do plays and musicals,” Herbsman said. “We have a number of first-time actors this year, including ninth graders and seniors who have never acted before.”

Stella Monberg ’26 played student and murder suspect Ron in Sarangan’s One Act, “Death by Decaf.” This year’s One Acts Festival is Monberg’s first time acting in an Urban theater production. “I want to see if I like acting and just have a fun experience and try something new,” she said. “It’s a very manageable time commitment, and it’s only in the last two weeks when you really have to lock in and be there every day.”

While students have previously performed One Acts in the Gumption Theater, this year the festival took place in the PACC for the first time.“The point of One Acts is to keep it pretty limited in terms of set, costumes and props to teach directors how to make something out of nothing, but we are able to give them a little more to work with now that we’re in the PACC,” Herbsman said.

All four of this year’s directors have acted in Urban theater productions before. “I usually have students in One Acts that have never done theater before,” Herbsman said. “This year, the directors all have a leg up on understanding the theatrical process.”

The festival drew an audience of more than 400 viewers, filled with laughs and gasps. “[You] can really see the passionate creation behind the plays,” Xa-Chin said. “The vision of the students is, almost every single year, mind-blowing. … Everyone showing up not only makes us directors feel amazing, but it also shows the community what Urban is about.”