Professor Heidi Winters Vogel’s theater class has been immersed since January in writing a new, devised play and staging it all in the course of a semester. The Wabash community gets a first look at “Thin Walls: Men(tal) Health” when it premiers in the Experimental Theater in the Fine Arts Center this week.

A limited number of seats – about 100 for each performance – are available for free but should be reserved in advance through the Box Office. “Thin Walls” runs nightly, 亚洲通dnesday through Saturday, at 7:30 p.m. The entire play runs less than an hour in length, though the audience is encouraged to stick around and provide feedback to the writers and performers.

The ultimate performance will take place this summer when the class travels to Scotland to compete in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival during a one-of-a-kind immersive experience.

The students in Vogel’s class all contributed to writing the play and each member will also play a role in the production. The students chose title of the play, “Thin Walls,” to emphasize its central themes – the thin walls that separate men, the veneer men create for themselves when expressing their masculinity, and the thin walls they use to hide the choices they make in their lives.

Professor Vogel says the students worked hard in developing and revising the script, and that the themes emerged from the students’ own life experiences. “They are experimenting with what a new masculinity might look like,” she said. “The play is asking men if they are willing to be vulnerable and honest, and enter relationships in a less combative way.”

“Thin Walls” stars the Theater 303 class, including Sean Bledsoe, Eamon Colglazier, Alejandro Cruz, Brody Frey, Tyler Horton, Dane Market, Preston Parker, Alex Schmidt, Gabrien Smith, and Carson Wirtz. The stage manager is Xavier Cienfuegos. Only a few members of the class have experience on stage, and the students are pushing themselves in ways that make them vulnerable, Professor Vogel said.

The play is billed as an exploration of cultural masculinity and men’s historical struggles with depression, loneliness, peer pressure, and violence. “Thin Walls” follows the lived experiences of three brothers immediately after their stereotypically masculine father, played by Dane Market, has died.

Brody Frey plays the oldest brother, whose masculinity and attitudes most closely mirror the boys’ father. Sean Bledsoe is the middle child, who eschews the “big man” image of his father and questions his own identity. Alex Schmidt is the youngest and is motivated to pursue his college education in an effort to be a more fully formed man – though struggles with the same vices most college students do.

Two members of the class – Market and Gabrien Smith – each wrote an original music composition for the play.

“Through devised performances, this show unearths the pressures, contradictions, and vulnerabilities that shape the male experience,” Vogel said.

“Thin Walls” involves adult language and situations and is not recommended for audiences younger than 14 years old.