Minds are whirling every first hour in the Blue Valley Southwest Black Box as the school’s Repertory Theater class shake away the early morning grog to try their own hand at creating art.

The Rep students are running an original show called “Boardwalk Dreams” based off the songs of music legend Bruce Springsteen. The show is set to run Oct. 17-19 in the Black Box.

Director Dan Schmidt partnered the students up before school let out in May, gave each pair a Springsteen song, and instructed them to write a ten minute scene. He is directing a few of the scenes, but otherwise students have been in charge of the whole process, from writing to casting, blocking, and rehearsing.

“It’s really hard to write a scene,” said senior Jake Louis. “Sometimes the message you think is conveyed isn’t how other people understand it at all.”

New Rep member Mason Wilkinson says he wasn’t expecting anything like this when he came in, but is glad to have learned to see things from a new point of view.

“There’s a lot more to theater than just the actors,” Wilkinson said. “There’s writing the script and directing too – the directors are a really big deal. It’s not just actors memorizing blocking and lines.”

Wilkinson isn’t the only one who has learned something.

“Students can playwright better than I thought,” said Schmidt. “They really came up with a lot of creative ideas; you never know what concepts they’ll come up with.”

Louis’s scene, based upon the song “Spirit in the Night” was one of the scenes Schmidt mentioned explicitly has having a particularly unanticipated spin on things.

“The song is literally about a party at a lake. That’s it.” said Louis. He and junior Erica Christie incorporated that party as an underlying theme within the scene, but have crafted something additional that the audience will have to wait to see until October.

Schmidt chose to call the work “Boardwalk Dreams” in honor of the theme of the show.

“It’s the American dream vs. reality,” said Schmidt. “It’s what we want to be vs. what we strive to be vs. reality…and everything in between.”

It is in this no man’s land that “Boardwalk Dreams” takes place.

He explained that when the dreams of the American people are achieved, they sometimes turn out to be a warped mess of the prospects they expected those dreams to bring. In parallel, the boardwalk, a hubbub of social activity back when the songs were written, has been eroded into empty old relics by time and Hurricane Sandy.

And it appears that Bruce Springsteen’s fame has begun to fade right along with that boardwalk.

“The name sounds familiar, but I don’t think I could tell you who that is,” said sophomore Romaric Keuwo.

As it turns out, this is exactly what the director of Southwest’s theater department, Dan Schmidt, was aiming for.

“Springsteen is from my generation, not theirs.” said Schmidt. Therefore they would have to figure out the lyrics for themselves, but he could help them if they needed it.

Avoiding the more famous Springsteen songs, Schmidt picked more obscure tunes in hopes that students would have untainted interpretations for their scenes.

“I always thought Springsteen’s lyrics would make a good show,” said Schmidt. “They provide enough parameters to give scenes inspired by them a direction, but are non-specific enough to allow plenty of freedom.”

Since he had been looking for a chance to do an original student production, in addition to the opportunity to give his strong senior class directing experience, everything fell together.

Louis grabbed this chance, choosing to forgo acting and direct the scene he wrote in order to “experience theater in a different perspective that I have before.”

Though not every student chose to direct, students maintain a lot of control over what happens. Even while he is directing, Schmidt constantly asks the students what they think the character they wrote would do here, and how much they would move or react.

He wants his students to learn how to work “in a collaborative writing way.”

“I know they do this some in their English classes,” said Schmidt. “But in a situation like this they are working for more than just a grade. This is a full production that people will pay to see.”

And see it they should, Schmidt thinks. He also hopes to get some smaller publishing companies to look at the final script, as long as it okay with Springsteen’s agents.

“It’s completely unique. This entire show has never been done before.”

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