Colfax senior writes and directs his own play

Tyler Giusti, 17, a Colfax High School senior, has been writing for years. He's written short stories, poems, novels and plays. For his senior project, he's directing "Trouble in Paradigms," a play he wrote himself. Giusti's play, set in the late 1990s, is about a restaurant in New York City, Rochester Bar and Grill, which has all the appearances of success, and is in the process of merging with 23 Burger Stop, a food joint that is open 23 hours a day. There is talk of stocks and corporate jargon, when all of a sudden, a tragedy hits and the merger is halted. The owner, Violet Weiks, bails out of the deal due to a mounting pile of bills and ... her husband's addictions. The story is about the aftermath of this turn of events. Giusti is one of seven actors featured in the play, all current or former CHS students. "I couldn't ask for a better cast," Giusti said. "I think it's worked out really well. Everyone has stepped up to their parts."Not an easy task according to Ashley Csicsery, 17, who plays Violet Weiks the restaurant owner who is a rather nasty character."It's been a difficult role to play because she's not as nice a person as I like to be," Csicsery remarked. "Violet is self-centered and doesn't care about anyone else, and that's just not how I am in real life.""But this show has been really fun," she added. "We were all friends before the show started and Tyler is the most fun director I've ever worked with. He relates really well to us ... it's more of a collaborative effort than our normal high school productions." Giusti wrote another play a few years ago, the Sound of Insanity, for Patrick Headland who directed it for his senior project at the time.Headland is returning to play a lead in Trouble in Paradigms.Over the past two summers, Giusti completed courses in creative writing and animation at InnerSpark, a California State summer school for the arts in Valencia, Ca. And, though he says he is best suited to writing, he'll probably end up being a director, because "screen writers don't get paid much at all in Hollywood."Giusti is also a teaching assistant in John Deaderick's beginning drama class."Tyler has been immensely valuable to me as a T.A. for drama," Deaderick said. "And his play is very good and very adult in terms of the maturity of the themes."Deaderick also noted Giusti's play is good character work for the actors. "When you're an actor, you want a character you can get inside the skin of ... one that's interesting," he said. "Most of the actors in this play are advanced drama students, but they are still young actors playing mature roles and dealing with mature themes," Deaderick added. The Trouble in Paradigms runs approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes and will be performed at the Colfax High School auditorium on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 9 and 10 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $5 and will be available at the door. Proceeds will cover production costs and any remaining revenue will be donated to the CHS drama department. For more information call John Deaderick at 530/346-2284 ext. 2202.