On March 21 and 22, five LT seniors will take the SC PAC stage with their self-directed student plays as part of the Donna Mavros Festival.

“There’s so many different things that are happening on stage in the course of two hours,” student director Cooper Brown ‘25 said. “It’s awesome when I get to watch them in tech rehearsal because it feels like I get to watch five different shows in one night.” 

Seniors can apply to direct one of the plays in the show, Theater Director Michael Kuehl said. The festival is named after a former theater teacher, Donna Mavros, and has been a tradition for over 20 years. Unlike Tens by Teens, a former LT production where students wrote their own plays, students research to find short, one act plays that they direct and put on with a student cast. 

“We get to see how the students would direct a piece as opposed to how an old man would direct a piece,” Kuehl said. “It’s kind of fun.”

This year, five seniors are directing plays: Lola Podolner ‘25 is directing “Horse with No Name,” Jenna Eggerding ‘25 is directing “Fallen Goldfish,” Alex Mudd ‘25 is directing “The Visitors,” Jack Anderson ‘25 is directing “Cheating Death,” and Brown is directing “Bittersweet Lullaby.” 

Auditions were held on Dec. 10, and students cast their plays and began rehearsals then. The students take charge of almost everything for their plays, including off-campus rehearsals up until two weeks before the festival. At that point, various theater teachers and directors supervise as the students rehearse in the SC PAC. 

“I love it just because we don’t have to rehearse it at all,” Kuehl said. “It’s all on the kids, and to not see much of it and then be surprised by it at the end is always spectacular.”

This year, Brown’s production is the only musical in the show. It follows the plot of two failed songwriters in New York City who lived in the same apartment 60 years apart from each other. Brown has acted in the festival for the past three years, and no director had ever put on a musical. 

“I really wanted to do a musical,” Brown said. “It used to be a healthy tradition that [Donna Mavros] would be around 10 shows, and half of them would be musicals. At least in my four years, though, we’ve only done plays, and I was really drawn to a musical.”

Podolner also has a unique play this year for the festival. Last year, Tess Larmon ‘25 wrote the play “Horse with No Name” in playwriting class. When Podolner was chosen to direct after acting in the festival the past two years, she chose to put on Larmon’s play. It follows the interactions and conflict of two men that meet in the desert, one an accused communist and one a young traveler. 

“My favorite part [about Donna Mavros] is how relaxed it is compared to other shows,” Podolner said. “You’ve got a student director, and not a lot is at stake. So you really get to focus on the things that are very fun about theater.”

The productions provide an opportunity for seniors to be leaders, Brown said. However, there are many challenges that come with that, and the seniors have to work through challenges on their own, without the leadership of a traditional adult director. 

“It’s super unguided, which is a great thing about Mavros because you can really make the rehearsal process and the show whatever you want it to be,” Brown said. “But it’s also a little stressful, and a little scary, because there’s no lines for you to color in, and you get to make your own drawing.”