Students in the Palo Alto High School theater program will debut three staged reading performances with faculty members for the first time at Paly at 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 24 in the Haymarket Theater.

“Staged reading is really a way to hear the script,” director Kristen Lo said. “What I want audiences to do is listen.”

Students and four members of the Paly faculty — science teacher Elizabeth Brimhall, history teacher Steve Foug, history teacher Hilary McDaniel and English teacher Kevin Sharp — will be acting on stage. Perfomers will have a music stand and will be able to read from the script. Unlike past plays at Paly, minimal movement and props will be involved, and only the beginnings of each play will be performed, according to Paly theater teacher Kathleen Woods.

“The focus is really on the script and relation between actors,” Woods said. “It [staged reading] is everything from vocal delivery and literature.”

Three staged reading are scheduled for performance. Dividing the Estate by Horton Foote, God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza and Reasons to be Pretty by Neil LaBute are all nominated for Best Play in the 2009 Tony Awards, according to Lo.

“We want to show what is pertinent in the theater world and give a snippet of that to the Paly community and Paly theater,” Lo said.

Dividing the Estate will be performed by students and is about a family in the suburbs of Houston concerned with the distribution of the property. God of Carnage, named Best Play in the Tony Awards of 2009, is centered around a meeting to ease the tensions between two couples, played by members of the Paly faculty, whose sons got into a fight. The last play, Reasons to be Pretty, performed by Lo and Sharp and directed by junior Stephanie Spector, is a relationship play focused on a fight between a couple over an insult.

“It [Reasons to be Pretty]deals with culture– the idea of being pretty and how it is too important,” Woods said. “They [the issues brought up in the plays] are all issues that are current and important. They can start a lot of conversations.”

Although new at Paly, staged readings are not uncommon in the theater world, according to Woods.

“Staged reading is a theater convention,” Woods said. According to Woods, it is even conventional to read the stage directions aloud during the play.

Additionally, staged readings are a new opportunity to let students “see faculty members in a different light,” and let students work with faculty members in a new environment, according to Woods.

Woods hopes that the staged performances will encourage the audience to purchase a video of the play or watch a live performance of the play in the future.

“I think the performers will really create a lot of interest in the play,” Woods said. “People will come watch the enjoyment of people who have worked with it and are delivering it in a dramatic way.”

Admission is free, and performances are for mature audiences because of strong language, especially in Reasons to be Pretty.