As most students prepared for finals and completed papers, drama students graduating this month put on the Loyola Senior One Act Festival. The festival featured two plays and one staged reading of a work in progress.

All three performances were presented completely by students, from the lighting to the cast and crew.

Drama/communications senior Christen Garrett directed “The Most Massive Woman Wins” by Madeline George, and drama senior Dasen Kendrick directed “The Great Goodness of Life” by Amiri Baraka.

Drama communications senior Kevin Held is in the process of writing “The Wait” and held a staged reading. The dramatic reading was focused on helping Held visualize how the script would play out on stage.

Drama seniors have four choices for their final project, but 90 percent choose to direct and produce their own plays, said professor Georgia Gresham, chairwoman of the department of drama and speech.

According to Gresham, this choice allows the students to accumulate all their experience into one element and tests the student’s ability to recruit and motivate his or her own team.

“It’s the whole process in a shortened version,” Gresham said. The festival takes place in the fall and spring. This week’s plays were the final projects of seniors graduating this month.

According to Gresham, there are usually more plays performed in the spring due to the greater number of students graduating at that time. The plays are performed in the Lower Depths Theatre, Loyola’s black-box experiment space. Lower Depths is below the communications building.

The theater’s walls, ceiling and floor are entirely black, and the audience sits in chairs set around the center of the room, where the plays are preformed.

The sets range from simple to elaborate, depending on the play and the director. The different sets indicate different interests and skills.

“A lot of thought and a tremendous amount of work goes into the one acts,” Gresham said.