The Dickinson Community Players’ most recent show, “Juvenilia,” is a play about life, college and all of the emotions, insecurities and sexual awkwardness that those entail. From half-baked dreams of marriage to fully-baked dreams of a threesome, the play revolves around four college juniors just trying to make sense of it all. Will I graduate on time? What should I declare as my major? How am I going to get laid? Is my lizard dying? All of these questions are dealt with in the story.

If you’re unfamiliar with DCP, the main attraction isn’t the glamour of their performances. As a smaller group on campus, they have to work with smaller casts and smaller sets. But if the DCP have proven anything by “Juvenilia,” they have taken these apparent limitations and turned them into strengths.

Jorge Granja, vice president of DCP and a senior majoring in human development, played Brodie, the underachieving and hopeless romantic who just can’t seem to stop cheating on his girlfriend, whom he plans to marry.

“Working on a show with DCP is something I haven’t found anywhere else. It’s not about being glossy, we pride ourselves on just making it work,” Granja said.

According to Jackie Horn, the show’s director and a local Binghamton University alumna, the show didn’t go completely as planned. After a last minute dropout for the part of Meredith (Brodie’s cynic of a girlfriend) just four rehearsals before the show, she was forced to fill the part of Meredith herself. While she would never cast herself in a production, given the time constraint, Horn was the only person who knew the play well enough to learn the lines and play the part.

“It’s very surreal to just suddenly be thrown into a performance. It’s almost like rehearsing an entirely new show in four days,” Horn said.

Despite the casting change, a play in crisis went against all odds to deliver an admirable performance on opening night.

Horn also stated that since they only had the Chenango Champlain Collegiate Center multipurpose room for one weekend, opening night was also the first night they had on the stage. Rehearsals, on the other hand, were held in a 10-by-15-foot room in the basement of Rafuse Hall. Opening night was also the first time they performed the show with a full set.

Though there were only four characters in the cast, the play accomplished a lot.

“With a small cast, you focus in on group chemistry. You really have to zero in on who you’re playing, but also who you’re playing it with,” Granja said.

The small cast made the performance less about props, sets and the actual plot, and more about how characters interact with each other. It was about capturing the humanity of the writing and translating that into on-stage chemistry.

“It’s very intimate, and you learn a lot about the people you work with in a very short period of time,” Horn said. “I’ve never seen so many inside jokes develop so quickly!”

When asked about any pre-show or rehearsal rituals that the cast and crew did to build chemistry, they all reported a dramatic reading of the hit single “Milkshake” by Kelis.

When putting on a show, things won’t always go according to plan. But the show must go on, and DCP exhibited their tact in their latest performance, “Juvenilia.” Their next show, the first part of “Angels in America,” titled, “Millennium Approaches,” will be coming to a C4 multipurpose room near you this December.