In the empty space of CenterStage at ’62 Center, an experiment of sorts is happening. Playwright Martyna Majok has brought her new play to the Williams College Summer Theatre Lab for some workshop sessions.

Veteran actress Jessica Hecht, who is appearing in a production at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, sits at the head of a large rectangle of tables, along with Majok and Summer Lab artistic director Caitlin Sullivan ’07. Under Hecht’s observant direction, 10 Williams students and 10 apprentices from the Williamstown Theatre Festival take turns in pairs reading scenes from the play. Hecht offers gentle constructive criticism, tips on technique and insights into how an actor approaches new material – a play never produced. Along with Majok, Hecht teases out the lines of the play, looking for a character’s tone, motivation or enunciation. Students ask questions of both playwright and actor to better understand the material, and then try another scene.

Throughout a week in July, the students have worked with Majok on playwriting in the mornings, acting with Betsy Aidam in the afternoons and then table reads with Hecht. It is just part of the immersive experience that Sullivan has assembled for students this summer.

For seven weeks, six days a week, students in the Summer Lab are immersed in every aspect of putting on a stage production – lighting, set design, costumes, acting and even marketing the event. At the end of the seven weeks, the students will stage a production. This year’s production is “Gilded Girls: 66 (very) Short Plays About the End of the World,” a new play by Mallery Avidon. Every step of the way, the students work alongside Williams alumni who come back to Summer Lab to share their experience gained working in professional theatre.

“The Lab provides students with the invaluable opportunity to immerse themselves in all aspects of theater making under the guidance of people who do this professionally,” Sullivan said. “It is the perfect supplement to the work that goes on here during the academic year. Not only are they gaining skills and real world insight, they are finding their own artistic voices while being an integral part of developing new work by some of the most exciting artists in the American theater.”

This is Sullivan’s first year as the full-fledged artistic director of the Summer Lab. She was the associate director last year under Kevin O’Rourke ’77, who founded the program and led it for 10 years. Since graduating from Williams, Sullivan has gone on to form the Satori Group, a Seattle-based ensemble theatre group, and enjoys bringing her real-world experience back to campus for students to tap into as they develop their skills.