He looks closely at his next line, he squints his eyes and begins to read, “I, I see red paint spilled on the card,” Robert Hart says as he acts out a scene from Flowers for Algernon as Charlie Gordon.

Students act and direct when it comes to Student One-Act plays, and the pressure is never greater than during the auditions. Wednesday, Sept. 2 was the day of the final callbacks, where a handful of students that auditioned the day before returned in hopes to land a role in one of four plays.

Student One-Act plays are a common trope for theatre students, where a number of short plays are held that are directed and acted out by students.

The four plays are “Wanda’s Visit”, directed by Daniel Fernandez, “Flowers for Algernon”, directed by Maya Hardinson, “Controlling Interest”, directed by Jennifer Magnani, and “The ECC Improv Troupe,” directed by Steven Mendez.

Student-directed plays have an especially high turn-out for auditions, as “it is little bit more comfortable, as it’s student-directed”, according to Robert Hart, 22, who received a call back for “Flowers for Algernon”.

Although Yessenia Cruz, 19, Theatre, thought the student directed plays are more “chaotic and nerve-racking. Even as you know some of the directors because they are students, you don’t want to cross the boundaries between friends and getting the actual job.”

Even those who were auditioning for the first-time received callbacks, such as Shenea Shampine, 22, psychology.

“It was awesome!” said Shampine, “I went up there, did my monologue, did my best, and as soon as I jumped off stage they were like, ‘can you come back in’?”

The callbacks lasted four hours, with some of the actors, like Shampine, staying for each of the auditions. Dozens of aspiring hopefuls come back for a part. This part is especially difficult for the directors.

For Maya Hardinson, 19, visual arts major, it “(gives her) a lot of anxiety when I see my friends or other actors that I know either do so well that I want to put them in the show, or they do so well and there’s just not a place for them in the show.”

Maya is directing the only drama of the production, which is difficult to measure before the actors know their lines. But as the audition continued, and after repeating scenes, you could see the development of the actors before your eyes.

Even though the night is made up of four different plays with different casts and directors, the goal is not to try to be the best show of the night , but rather it’s “to make everyone’s show just as good as our own show,” Hardinson said.

Hardinson is directing for the first time at EC. Even though there are four different plays, one drama and three comedies, it is important that the audience sees this as “one night that just flows together.”

The directors must resist picking their favorites, as some of the directors have been working with many of these students for years, but “ultimately, must of us would agree this person, as much as we want them, that the person would be a lot more suitable for that role than our own.”

The show will premiere on Friday, Oct. 10, with an encore the next night on Oct. 11.