Thespian Troupe 1534 is hard at work preparing for this year’s unique student-directed show, premiering on Thursday, Sept. 10.

Every year, the high school’s Thespian troupe is responsible for a production, presented to fellow students during their English classes.

“It’s student-directed-and-run,” senior Marie Beatty said. “We start as soon as school starts.”

Between balancing schedules and schoolwork, the cast and crew have had about a month to prepare the performance. “We have been practicing as much as we can,” Miley Heisler, director of this year’s show, said. “We recently had auditions for the fall play, so we had to work around other drama club meetings as well.”

Expanding upon last year’s show, which featured three different stories, the Thespian troupe hopes to achieve a more creative approach to the show’s structure.

“We’ll attempt to perform 23 plays in 46 minutes,” senior Kevin Connelly said.” The audience decides what order the plays are performed in.”

Each play, selected by Heisler from a collection of neo-futurist plays, will be about two to three minutes long.

Heisler stumbled upon the idea among a multitude of scripts belonging to Mrs. Motley, Troupe 1534’s director. “It was something new and interesting,” Heisler said. “I really like how it has the audience interaction.”

Connelly, the lead in the upcoming fall production, is the show’s facilitator. “It’s my job to keep the ball rolling, so to speak,” he said. “My part really relies on the audience, and since we haven’t had one yet, it’s been difficult to know what to do.”

As the show’s stage manager and member of the tech crew, senior Jenna White is also effected by the show’s unique structure. “The light and sound people cannot write cues, which makes it very hard,” she said. “We are constantly on our toes because the [show’s] order will never stay the same.”

Setbacks notwithstanding, White believes in the competency of the crew: “we’ve practiced a lot and we’ve fixed a lot of problems.”

Heisler, who blocked, casted, and held auditions for each play, has high hopes for the show’s premiere. “It should [run smoothly],” she said. “It has been hard, but it is coming together greatly!”