CT students shine at world’s biggest performing arts festival in Scotland

At any age, telling someone you’re interested in them can be a nerve-wracking experience — the thrill of a secret, the excitement of attraction, and, of course, the fear of rejection. Take all those feelings, then imagine competing with other people for attention… in front of an audience.

That’s exactly how Reject Me Already!, a musical written by Paul Richard Keegan, begins. The show’s structure is a choose-your-own-adventure love story, where any of the cast members could play the love interests—depending on who the audience chooses.

“We were like, “How are [the audience] going to know about us, and how do they know each performer and what our personalities are like?” So we came up with almost this elevator pitch of why you should choose me, and why I should fall in love,” Reject Me Already! actor Sean Ryan said.

“And then down the line, all six of us. We say our sentence, we say our pitch, and we say, “This is why you should vote for me.” And then the audience, from that, gets to raise their hand and decide, “Oh, I think this person and this person would be cute together. I really liked his pitch, so I’m going to choose him.”

All six actors in the show — Ryan, along with Christopher Conte, Colleen DeGennaro, Grace Peknic, Nick Rubano and Sage Sperling — would take turns offering their one-liners in hopes of charming the audience into picking them for a lead role.

“I stand there, and I wait to be judged by the audience of people,” said actor Sperling. “It’s very nerve-wracking. I will not lie.”

Keegan said the idea for a vulnerable, somewhat awkward show comes from his own experience as a young person in the dating sphere.

“I am someone who was awkward and introverted and shy and self-conscious… So I wanted to reflect that in all of the characters and the material,” he said. “But I wanted to do it sort of in my own way, and not necessarily subvert expectations, but hopefully give the audience everything that they wanted from a rom-com in a new, fresh and interesting way.”

Keegan originally wrote the show for a small, intimate space as part of his senior project as a theater and media arts major at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn. He said it was designed to exude the expected quirk and intimacy of a rom-com but with a fresh take that would stay in the audience’s mind.

So when he got the call from Jerry Goehring, Sacred Heart’s performing arts director, to run a show at the biggest performing arts festival in the world, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, he said he knew Reject Me, Already! was the obvious choice.

This year, the Fringe hosted more than 50,000 scheduled performances of about 3,300 different shows across a concentrated section of Edinburgh, Scotland. Distinct from most arts festivals, though, there isn’t any process to apply or audition to join the festival. Anyone can join the Fringe, provided they can find a venue to host their performance.

After locking down their venues and reformatting the musical to fit the 50-minute time slot they were given, actor Ryan said the next most important step was advertisement: getting people actually to come to the show.

“It’s so busy, so packed. You’d walk literally across the street to get a coffee, and you’d come back home with at least 10 fliers. Like, people just everywhere, always giving you a flier.”

On any given night of the 21 shows the group performed in total, there was no guarantee of a packed house or any audience at all—another layer of vulnerability on top of a show that left the actors little space to hide.

That type of setting, combined with the show’s nature, would make any participant competitive for the lead, which only two of the six actors are awarded on a given night’s performance. Ryan said it can be difficult to get rejected days in a row.

“There’s always that thought of, “Man, yeah, would I love to play the lead every single night?” Of course. But you know, sometimes, it’s just not in the cards.”

But competition between the actors never mounted, he said.

“There was never this moment of being selfish… because we came at this whole project with so much love for each other. [It] was always like, “Yes! How can I elevate their performance? How can I be someone on stage who’s going to allow someone else to play off me really well? And how can we make an audience laugh in a new way?” Because obviously, with everything we bring to each role, it’s going to be different every night.”

Actor Grace Peknic said she thinks it’s because everyone who was a part of the show truly fell for its plot and purpose. They had all played every combination of characters who fell in love with each other. Throughout their rehearsals and their nearly month-long residency in Edinburgh, she said that’s exactly what happened to the actors themselves.

“We knew we were starting this show, we were like, “Oh, we all fall in love with each other.” We just got down to who we are as people, surrounded by each other. So how could you not be in love?” Peknic said.

Connor Nelson for Reject Me, Already!

And their love for their work—acting, singing, writing, and producing—grew as well. None of the students who participated in Reject Me, Already! are positive they’ll be able to sustain a future in acting or writing.

“Gone are the days of just being an actor,” Paul said, the musical’s writer. “Now, you need to be an actor, a writer, a director and a musician, and you need to be able to play the banjo while you’re balancing on your head… You have to be able to do so much.”

Though they received rave reviews from the Fringe, a festival in which household names like Robin Williams and Alan Rickman got their start, there are no promises. A 2019 study by Queen Mary University of London showed 2% of actors made a living from the profession. At any given time, 90% of actors were out of work.

But actor Peknic said performing at the Fringe gave her confidence. As a senior in college this year, she has her sights set on the stage.

“Now, as a performer, I can confidently say I am an actor. I’m going to pursue acting after college. And that was not there with me before The Fringe.”