Four student actors performing in their first play ask difficult moral questions in NE Campus’ opening production of the year.
“Lobby Hero” is a dark comedy play written by American playwright and film director Kenneth Lonergan that touches on real-life issues like sexism, racism and policing. NE adjunct drama instructor Jake Blakeman, the director, describes the show as a test to humans’ moral compasses.
The story follows a man named Jeff who is a security guard at a high-scale apartment building in New York.
William, a Black man and the boss of the lobby pushes Jeff to be better, but when Dawn, a female cop, walks into the lobby, Jeff can’t help but confess his feelings for her. However, Dawn is not interested as she is involved with her partner Bill. Jeff has been passive in his life and throughout the show he is forced to be more intentional, according to Blakeman.
“He is just caught in the middle of these circumstances of people struggling through things,” he said. “And through just being there and being in the lobby, being just somebody, a body, people are confiding in him and telling him things that end up making him have to choose between loyalties.”
The play will run Sept. 30-Oct. 3 at 7 p.m. with another showing Oct. 3 at 2 p.m. at the NE theater in NFAB with free admission.
NE student Toby Whatley, who is playing Jeff, said his character is just an average and weird guy who has to make some high-risk decisions. But through the chaos, Whatley can relate.
“A lot of bits of him I see in myself, which is really nice. And I think my director sees them in me, too,” he said.
For NE student Isaac Macon, this is his first semester at TCC and only his second play he has acted in. Macon plays William, who is Jeff’s boss and occasional friend. Macon describes William as a strict man who lives by a set of morals and rules that are later challenged when his brother is arrested.
“He does struggle with, you know, the battle between the rules for family. Do I hold strong to what I know to be true, or do I, you know, bend the rules, break the rules a little bit for the sake of, this is my blood, this is my family?” Macon said. “And so, as the play goes on, those feelings and those emotions get more in conflict, they start to battle more, and it eventually does come to a head.”
William isn’t the only one battling his morals. Dawn, played by Maddie Beck, battles her own mind when engaging in a brief affair with her cop partner Bill.
Beck said her character wants to do good.
“She struggles through the show but eventually does what she thinks is right, even though there are consequences for her,” she said.
Beck has been acting for a little over three years, and this is her first show at TCC. She said that those who want to watch the show should wait for the ending.
“The end is really fun,” she said. “The end is when it all goes down.”
Dawn’s partner and mentor Bill, played by Samuel Guirguis, is described as “not the nicest guy.” Not only is “Lobby Hero” Guirguis’s first TCC performance, but this show is also his first show to act in ever.
Guirguis took a theater appreciation and acting class taught by associate professor Jakie Cabe.
“He told me they were doing auditions for this, and I showed up, and, you know, it went well, I think,” Guirguis said.
Some shows are meant to entertain, some are meant to educate and some are meant to probe the human condition, and “Lobby Hero” is a mix of all three, according to Blakeman.
“I think the thing that will come out of it is that people will have different perceptions of what these characters should or should not have done, which will start conversations about our own moral compass and what we value,” Blakeman said. “And I think those types of plays are always really important to have, right?”
Not only do the characters within the show battle an unexpected shift, but the theater department itself is having to shift as well.
The NE Campus drama budget was cut 57% according to the annual budget released Sept. 18 forcing the department to cancel the fall musical and postpone the production of “Lobby Hero.” Blakeman said in that sense, the play reflects reality.
“In the midst of us as a department, trying to realign and figure out what are our priorities, this kind of seems to also mirror that these people in their lives, in these huge decisions, are trying to figure out what are my values. What is the value of my own truth and integrity versus love for a family member? The desire to belong versus doing what is right, which may exclude you. Those are things that I think we can all relate to,” Blakeman said. “And I think when we experience that, I think that we have better conversations with ourselves, better conversations with the people of our lives. And I think hopefully we may become better human beings.”
