As part of the Department of Theatre Arts’ series of senior-directed one-act plays, Rebecca Hollingsworth got her first chance to step outside the actor’s realm and watch her own work from off the stage.

Hollingsworth, theatre arts senior and director of “Eternity In the Hearts of Men,” written by Loyola alumnus Dan Schap, A’08, was one of four student directors — also including theatre arts seniors Joshua Eichhorn, Adrienne Burns and Chris Bohnstengel — to direct plays at this year’s festival.

The students began their search for plays to direct at the beginning of the fall 2010 semester, but Hollingsworth got caught in a few snags before finally finding a play that was approved.

“I originally wanted to do a (Christopher) Durang play and I was going to use a puppet as the fourth character,” she said. But the idea got rejected because the owners to the rights of the play felt it changed the character too much, according to Hollingsworth.

So she turned to Schap, who had set down the idea of “Eternity In the Hearts of Man” before it was finished.

“He said that he was thinking about this piece a lot and he offered to pick it back up and write it in a day or two,” Hollingsworth said. “He wrote up a storm, it was so fast. But it came out beautifully.”

Hollingsworth also called for a completely original music score for the piece, which was provided by music composition senior Joe Shirley, as well as one song with vocals by music industries business senior Noah Adams.

“(Joe and I) wanted it to be scary and creepy, like a silent movie without the camp,” she said.

Because of the sensitive subject matter of the play — including genetic engineering and “familicide,” or murdering one’s own family — researching the real-life conditions the characters experienced was key for getting an accurate portrayal across.

“I felt like a crazy person; I was in the library and I researched a lot about the regeneration of life around the 1920’s,” Hollingsworth said. “I was also looking up pictures of murderers and the mental reasons why people kill their families.”

Hollingsworth only had one person in mind for her cast before her other two actors seemingly fell into place.

“I had Adrienne Burns in mind as Dorothy because she has such a soft spoken, loving quality while still seeming strong and intelligent,” she said. “I couldn’t imagine anybody else playing her, but she was also directing and directors aren’t supposed to be auditioning.”

After much deliberation by department heads, Burns was allowed to audition, and was offered the role. The other two roles were given to theatre arts freshman Hunter Christopher and junior Tyler Yee.

“Hunter is a first semester freshman at Loyola and I thought his look was perfect for Teddy. I really wanted teddy to have this scruffy, dangerous look,” she said.

“(Tyler is) a comedian, he’s a funny guy. When I first gave him the script, I was thinking, ‘I’m not going to cast him.’ And then I saw him in ‘A Christmas Carol,’ and he blew me away. He has such control over himself and his emotions, and he has so much charisma and can control the audience’s emotions.

“I’m also very grateful for my stage manager, Kelly Frazier (sociology junior),” Hollingsworth said. “She was incredible, and she kept me on track for a long time.”

By putting herself on the other end of the creative process, Hollingsworth said being a director gave her a new outlook on theatre.

“It was different, because I’m so used to performance and it was the first time I was directing a piece that wasn’t for a class,” she said. “It was the first time having people work under me. It helped me learn a lot about my artistic taste, and how to communicate with other actors so that they not only get their character out, the one that they see on the page, but the character that I see on the page.”

The opening night of the show was still just as nerve-wracking for her as performing in a play.

“I felt like I was gonna faint after the first (performance) because I was buzzing around everywhere. I felt like my heart was gonna come out of my chest,” she said. “But once it was over I was so relieved. It was hard knowing that once the show started, it wasn’t my show anymore.”

Happy with the outcome, Hollingsworth said she was glad to be able to see all the hard work that went into the performance pay off.

“It’s a crazy amount of work that you don’t realize,” she said. “Even though it was overwhelming, you could always see the light at the end of the tunnel.”

Kevin Zansler can be reached at [email protected]