Students’ creative talents, technical efforts shine at 2026 One-Acts Festival

Its setting was a poetry course that takes place at a community college in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, on the cusp of the country’s 225th anniversary. Their teacher, a grandmotherly professor at the college, invites the eight participants of different backgrounds and ages—including a Ukrainian immigrant who has faced bigotry, a homeless young waitress, and a doctor who regrets abandoning a music career—to read works about America’s foundational ideal of opportunity. Their discussions give rise to personal confessions about their goals, worries and hardships, which reflect how social issues such as identity discrimination, acute poverty, rapid technological change and the painful legacy of settler violence challenge the simple idea that hard work leads to success.

“It was a breathtaking play about the American experience that could have been a thesis. It was absolutely stunning,” says Director of Theater Alexandra London-Thompson.

London-Thompson led the afternoon theater program in the third trimester of the 2025-26 academic year in which De La O and other students worked together to plan, organize and execute the eight brief productions that comprised the festival. The students were entirely responsible for writing, directing and acting in the plays, plus handling casting, set design, costumes, music and lighting. London-Thompson provided the students with key guidance as needed but afforded them as much independence as possible to maximize their hands-on learning.

The One-Acts Festival has been an annual springtime tradition at Porter’s for decades, and one that involves the participation of Avon Old Farms School, with the school’s theater director, Gwen Couch, assisting with production and some of its students acting in plays. Also assisting as tech coordinator was Rachel Sinay, a theater professor at CT State Community College. Some Porter’s personnel also volunteered to act in roles as needed. The festival took place on the evenings of May 15 and 16 at the Hacker Theater.

While Porter’s students choose whether to join the production as a theater tech artist or performing artist, London-Thompson ensures everyone can take on roles in both domains in order to expand their theater skill set. So in addition to writing and directing her own play, plus writing three others, De La O also organized set design, props and costume design for her show.

Likewise, Dodo Bi ’27 wrote, directed and arranged sound for her own play — a 10-minute comedy about a mother who gives her daughter ridiculous gifts that she steals from her workplace — and also designed and programmed lighting for others.

Meanwhile, Lexi Trimble ’27 served as producer of the entire festival, which involved coordinating all processes between participants, scheduling and overseeing rehearsals, guiding directors, supervising lighting and sound design, helping to design the marketing poster and even securing props and finishing costumes.