Bringing Vision to the Arts: Interdisciplinary Students Direct Plays in Fowler Black Box Theatre

When the theatre department was founded in 1989 by Augustine Ripa, his goal was to create a space where students from all backgrounds and academic paths could be accepted, challenged and celebrated.

Students from across Lehigh have found an opportunity to experience theatre first-hand through the directing class, which allows them to direct 20-or 40-minute plays in the Fowler Black Box Theatre in Zoellner Arts Center.

Ripa retired in Fall 2023 after 44 years at Lehigh and 18 years as department chair, but the black box productions continue. The latest shows took place May 2-4.

They included “Tuesdays & Sundays," directed by Sarah Ellis Morgan ’27 and “Fefu and her Friends," directed by Zoë Miller ’26 in the Fowler Black Box Theatre.

A Place for Students of All Disciplines

During Ripa’s tenure, more than 150 students from across majors have directed in the black box theatre, and the class continues to attract students from outside the theatre department.

Morgan is a psychology major with minors in theatre, studio art and global studies. She is taking Advanced Directing this semester.

Morgan studied theatre in middle and high school and had no intention of continuing with it in college, but she enrolled in a play analysis class at Lehigh and was encouraged to take Directing the following semester. Morgan fell in love with the work and is now working toward directing on the Diamond Theatre’s main stage.

Morgan said her psychology studies inform her how to be a better director. She thinks of it as “putting her work into practice.”

“I use some of the things I've learned in psychology in theatre to understand it better, and then that helps me understand psychology better too,” Morgan said. “I feel my psychology [knowledge] serves my theatre experience more, but I think I learned what I know about psychology through theatre.”

In addition to directing, the black box productions teach students collaboration, leadership and creativity — something that is essential to any academic journey, Ripa said

“You can't major in teamwork, and you can't major in leadership. But you can get those skills from various disciplines, and theatre [and directing] is one of the best,” he said.

Kashi Johnson ’93, professor and chair of the theatre department, said Ripa always put student opportunity first and sought out students from across the university. Johnson was an undergraduate when Ripa cast her as the lead in a production of Samuel Beckett’s tragi-comedy “Endgame.” Ripa’s influence inspired her to become an actor, director and professor.

Johnson noted that participation by a wider range of students with varied academic backgrounds results in richer work produced by the department.

“These students also remind us that theatre isn't just for theatre people. It’s a way of connecting across disciplines, across experiences and across lives,” she said.

The unofficial "directing track” includes: Directing, Advanced Directing, and assisting a professor with directing a main stage show in the Diamond Theatre. Once students complete these three steps, they can be vetted by the tenure-track faculty to direct a main stage season show.

Morgan said there’s a sense of pride she feels for her directing that she can’t find anywhere else, and wants to keep producing her work on a larger scale.

“There's something so unique about directing and theatre that is inherently a collaborative space,” Morgan said. “That makes it mean so much, and it makes the stakes so high.”

The Plays

“Tuesdays & Sundays,” a one-act play by Daniel Arnold and Medina Hahn, was inspired by a story that took place in 1887 in the farming community of Margate on Prince Edward Island.

“Fefu and Her Friends” is a one-act play by María Irene Fornés that follows a group of eight women gathered at the home of their friend Fefu. As conflicts unfold between the old friends, they struggle to define who they are and what it means to be a woman in a patriarchal society.

Story by Sydney Weaver '25