Playwright pens ACCC melodrama
Nic Olson isn’t used to stage fright.
Frequent stage and music performances in high school and college have long since cured Olson of any unnecessary jitters.
So why is he so nervous his week?
“That’s my baby out there,” Olson said.
Olson, a 2005 Iola High School and 2007 Allen County Community College graduate, penned the upcoming ACCC Summer Theatre in the Park melodrama, “Happy Gentle Melody, or The Scandalous Staccato Steals the Show.”
“I’m fine when I’m out on stage getting knocked around,” Olson said. “But this is different.”
OLSON worked on the melodrama over the past 12 months, shortly after the ACCC troupe wrapped up its 2009 summer melodrama.
A couple of casual conversations with ACCC instructors Tony Piazza and his wife, Terri, kick-started the process.
“I can remember Mrs. Piazza saying how all of these melodramas are set in the same time period, and that they usually don’t need to find different costumes.”
That comment led to Olson’s suggestion about a melodrama — complete with brave and true heroes and fiendish villains — set in a 1930s jazz era.
“Tony asked me to get started on it,” Olson recalled.
Olson started like gang-busters on the play, quickly putting together a rough outline.
“Then I hit a dry spell,” he said. “That lasted a couple of months before I got down to business again.”
Characters were added, then later pulled, as the script took shape. He put the final touches on the rough draft this spring.
Tony Piazza helped with the script’s fine-tuning, mainly by smoothing out transitions and helping Olson “clear the stage” by creating situations that would lead characters off stage.
“A couple of parts had half the cast on stage not doing anything,” Olson said. “We had to fix that.”
By Memorial Day weekend — just days before auditions — the script was complete.
OLSON FIGURED all was well until the Piazzas called again the following Wednesday.
“They needed more characters,” Olson said. “They had more people audition than what they were expecting.”
Rather than send any youngster home disappointed, Olson was directed to create additional characters for the play.
In the span of a week, Olson created an assortment of young female mafiosos and a slapstick-laden jazz band. He also had to compose three songs.
“Writing the music was the hardest part,” he said. “I know enough about music to be able to play along, and that’s about it.”
Then came the final request a couple of days later.
“Tony called me right before rehearsals started and told me that one of the guys backed out and they needed another actor.
So Olson agreed to join the cast, portraying Bernie, an accident-prone drummer.
“I figured I’d keep tabs on how things were going as the play neared,” Olson said. “This let me get involved again from the start.”
Olson noted the irony in playing a character — and taking direction — in a play that he wrote.
That’s where trust comes in.
“I’m not a director, and I’m not an editor like Mr. Piazza,” Olson said. “I trust his vision. He helped a lot in a way that just added to the play.
“Some of the scenes haven’t turned out how I originally envisioned them —” Olson noted, “they’re actually better.”
Piazza, likewise, was impressed with Olson’s script.
“I thought Nic did a great job,” Piazza said. “His writing is good, and he has such a good eye for his characters. His dialogue is very clever.”
The play, Piazza said, compares favorably to recent ACCC summer melodramas.
“I’m very pleased with how it’s turned out.”
The play runs at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Riverside Park, south of the stone shelter house. Admission is free, although audience members are asked to bring lawn chairs or blankets for seating.
The performance is sponsored by the Sleeper Family Trust.
THIS WEEK’S melodrama marks the third time Olson has penned a play for the college. He previously wrote a pair of one-act skits, “Date With Doom” about a woman who goes on a blind date with a man who happens to be a super villain, and “Predictable” about a mysterious visitor to a local high school who can read minds.
“Writing the melodrama was obviously a bit different than the one-acts,” Olson said. “With those, all the writing and dialogue is quick and to the point — you have 15 minutes to tell the story. But with a melodrama, you can expand on things, and stretch the story a bit.”
“Happy Gentle Melody” features the acting talents of 22 young thespians, from middle school- to college-aged.
“That’s the fun part,” Olson said. “I’ve worked with a couple of the actors before this, and I had certain people in mind for certain characters, such as the young mafia girls. They’ve done a great job. I know they scare me.”
