Once again it is tech week! It feels like there is a new tech every two weeks or so at this point in the semester, so I decided to sit down with myself and really get to the bottom of the mystery as to why I chose to direct "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie for Fresno State's Experimental Theatre Company.

To begin with, the Experimental Theatre Company at Fresno State puts on entirely student-run productions twice a year where students can break into any part of the theatre in a low-stress environment to try things out. Run by a board of students, E.T.C. as we fondly call it, is an organization by the students and for the students. From the director to the cast to the crew to the designers, everyone is a student and we put on fully realized productions in the midst of all being involved in tons of other productions and theatre classes every semester. We perform in the Lab School 101 theatre, a black box theatre in a very funky building cleverly disguised as a classroom from the outside. This is where it all began.

I have spent the last two years sitting in Lab School staring out those peculiar windows wondering why no one has ever thought to use them in a scene or a show. In fact, it wasn't until we filmed the promotional video for "And Then There Were None" that I actually saw Lab School with all of its windows open, and it doesn't even feel like a theatre anymore! The strangeness of the building is always covered by masking and set pieces and really anything to hide what the theatre is itself, so I wanted to go ahead and give that theatre the chance to shine for the building that it is.

I've always known I wanted to direct for E.T.C. because it is one of the final frontiers of theatre that I have not yet tackled. But then it came down to what show. So I began with a genre, murder mystery. When I was a sophomore at University High, we put on a production of "The Mousetrap" by Agatha Christie in the very same theatre we are currently using this week. I absolutely loved "The Mousetrap" in that space because it was so intimate and spooky, and I left rattled. Agatha was my gal, but I didn't know which of her many murderous tales I wanted to put on the stage, so I bought an anthology of her best and brightest plays. The very first play was "And Then There Were None."

I finished the book, but that first story stuck with me. Already my brain was swirling with ideas, the glass doors as the balcony, the curtains of the theatre as big musty Victorian house curtains, a chandelier in the small space, illuminating the room and giving the audience an excuse to enjoy every part of the theatre. I knew had to do this play!

For a brief overview, "And Then There Were None" tells the classic tale of ten unsuspecting strangers making their way to an island that is completely isolated, and not thinking twice about it because they all received convincing letters. Once on the island, the ten strangers find themselves trapped in a rather bare house with a murderer whose childish ways follow an old poem, "The Ten Little Soldier Boys," which never ceases to stump those who survive the murderer's whims. If I say any more, it will be spoilt like Mrs. Rogers' souffle, so onward and upward!

For the rest of this past summer, between interning for Conan and preparing for graduation, I plotted my play like a well thought out murder. When school time rolled around, I was ready, Powerpoint full to the brim with scary images and music, my Wednesday Addams' dress just playfully dark, and a drive to see Agatha's prose grace the Lab School stage once again.

Once elected director, I took to dissecting the play like a "madman, an absolute madman" and came up with a way to help my actors feel the tension, the anger, and the fear that happens when you're trapped in such a scary and intense situation. Day one, we played Mafia, a card game that involves a group of people trying to "ferret out the mystery" and decide who the Mafia is before they kill everyone. The outcome of that game actually was the exact same result as the end of Agatha's plot for our show, and we all laughed at the irony. With this in the back of our brains, we tackled the play, which is just a gigantic game of Mafia.

Funnily enough, this past week, my mom read an article about the director of the new movie, "Murder on the Orient Express," and he said they began their first rehearsal with a game of Werewolf, a game very similar to Mafia. I laughed because we had the same idea when it came to directing Agatha Christie!

For the past six weeks we have been working five days a week, two hours a day, to bring Agatha's world to life. This includes rehearsal as well as the countless hours spent by designers to pull the costumes, focus the lights, find the music, put together the set and props, and create Agatha's world as an entirely immersive experience. That's right folks, an immersive theatre experience! From actors entering from almost every functioning door in the theatre, and boy are there a lot, to utilizing the actual outdoors for the balcony, and having our set extend all the way to the door where the audience enters, the Lab School is no longer a black box, but rather the summer home of some rather queer rich folks.

But now, after many days of laughter and stress, we have finally made our way to this week. The week of weeks, tech, where my actors got to witness for the first time the crazy ideas the designers and I have been working on for these past few weeks. There is nothing quite as exciting as the first time you get to see a show entirely come together, and after our first tech, I am brimming with excitement for the audience to be just as spooked as I was sitting in the dark theatre, surrounded by old furniture, and waiting to see who will win, the murderer or our ten little soldier boys?

"And Then There Were None" runs at Fresno State in the Lab School 101 theatre November 9th at 4pm, November 10th at 7:30pm, November 11th at 7:30pm, and November 12th at 2pm. Tickets are avaliable at the door for $5, check out the Fresno State Theatre Department page for more information: http://www.fresnostate.edu/artshum/theatrearts/per...