Blackout

Written and directed by junior Henrik Nielsen, Blackout tells the story of a mother who begins to question her children’s existence during a power-outage. Harrowingly and with deep emotion, she contemplates existentialism.

According to sophomore Elena Stern, she was challenged by memorization and timing in tandem with increasing her own emotion to portray terror.

“The  monologue was not only difficult to memorize, but also to get that raw build of emotion,” she said. “But visualizing the words I said in my head made it feel real. Suddenly there was no audience, just me and the love for my children. Being able to manipulate your voice to different tones is difficult without over stretching which was a problem in the beginning, but with hard work became one of my strengths to really portray that raw pain. I had to lower my pitch in what I was speaking and really think from my diaphragm to properly project without being monotone.