A little about Regent Lab Shows

Last weekend, Regent University’s acting lab was transformed into a police department’s interrogation room as 4 of our third-year MFA actors thrilled audiences in a suspenseful new play, The Confessional, written and directed by third-year MFA student Jayson Akridge.

This upcoming weekend, the acting lab will become the meeting house, chicken coup, laundry room, and meadow of a Shaker Village set in 1830’s Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, as MFA and MA actors perform Arlene Hutton’s As It Is in Heaven.

These productions, known to us here as Lab Shows, are part of Regent’s “Second Season”—shows put on in addition to our Mainstage Theatre season. There are usually 1-2 Lab Shows a semester. Last semester, we put on Tim Mogford’s Libby Pearce Drinks as well as the debut of a work by second-year MFA student Alaska Reece Vance, Moonlight in Boxes. Lab shows exist so that the theatre students can be presented with more chances to act, direct, and produce, as well as be exposed to more types of material than what we can fit into our Mainstage season. As the audiences for these shows are comprised largely of the Regent Theatre community, these shows are a prime opportunity for acting students to take a microscope to their technique, to explore different methods and different roles, and to get practical feedback from both their professors and fellow students.

Showtimes for this weekend’s performances of As It Is In Heaven are Thursday Feb 26 @ 7:00 (invited dress rehearsal), Friday Feb 27 @ 7:00, and Saturday Feb 28 @ 3:00 & 7:00pm.