The real joy in Our Lady of 121st Street is taking a peek into these awful people and their regret-filled lives. Even the successful characters are melancholic and searching for hope.

In the fourth of a series of Q&A sessions with SFUAD students, Jackalope Magazine speaks with Performing Arts Department senior Alan Littlehales, who shares his thoughts on Our Lady of 121st Street, plans for the future and Oregon.

By Sarah Ruhl; directed by Performing Arts Department senior Corbin Albaugh In an age of nearly infinite technological convenience and possibility, rarely do we stop and think of associated consequences. Dead Man’s Cell Phone is the story of Jean, a middle-aged woman, who is forced to encounter her own internal truths after the discovery of a dead man at the café at which she was dining. In turn, this surrealist comedy forces us to confront our own fixation with digital technology and the reality from which it disconnects us. Performances run Nov. 1-2 at 7 p.m. and Nov. 3 at 2 p.m in the Weckesser...

Middletown, the latest SFUAD Performing Arts Department production, opens with Curtis Williams’ Public Speaker waxing philosophic about the nature of small towns. It’s a fun digression that captures the high energy and inherent sadness of the mostly plot-less but emotionally poignant show that follows. The play has an ensemble cast, but there are a few characters given the most time to shine, including: Mathew Eldridge’s John Dodge; Porscha Shaw’s Mary Swanson; Michael Phillip Thomas’s Cop; and Jade Lewis’s Mechanic. Eldridge and Shaw did a phenomenal job carrying the emotional weight for much of the play. Due to the structure of the play, many of the actors had the difficult job of taking what could easily be one-note characters and adding pathos. It seems lazy to make such a blanket statement, but the whole cast was really up to the challenge. Not every joke landed, and not every character left the same impression, but the batting average is so high, it is easy to brush off the shortcomings. Maia Rychlik’s Librarian and Yusef Seevers’s Doctor, in particular, breathed such life into simple characters that leave one combing through all of their dialogue for hidden meaning long after you leave Greer Garson Theatre. The two scenes that stood out most were the scene in space and Lewis’s scene with Tallis Geohegan-Freifeld’s Doctor. The scene in space, featuring Matt McMillan and Robert Henkel Jr. is nestled towards the end of Act One. The scene is by far the most removed from the plot, but is the first point where the themes are front and center. McMillan and Henkel Jr.’s subtle performance prevents the message from being overbearing. Chelsea Kuehnel’s sets are also a delight in their simplicity, giving the space scene a magical feel and the dusty...