After a spaghetti dinner at her house and dozens of rehearsals, Jennifer Conrad is finally satisfied.

“That’s perfect,” says Conrad. She is the acting coach for “Fences,” the African-American Theater Ensemble’s spring production.

After more than an hour of practice, Act 2, Scene 5 is finally done for the night. Except Alexis Little, a Speech freshman, still wants to discuss blocking. And Weinberg Sophomore Chris Brown, who plays her son, thinks a prop should be added.

“There’s a lot of passion,” says Jason Trippel, the play’s director. “There’s a lot of commitment. (The actors) really enjoy themselves on the stage.”

The play won its author, August Wilson, a Pulitzer Prize in 1987. It is the story of the figurative fences constructed within and around a black Pittsburgh family in the 1950s. Specifically, it focuses on the relationship between a father and son as they each try to appreciate the other’s perspective.

For Trippel, a Columbia College Chicago junior, his first experience directing at Northwestern spawned “a lot of sleepless nights. It’s been one obstacle after another.” The show lost two lead actors and a producer, leaving Trippel and his assistant director, Tanya Kirksey, scrambling.

“We were playing double and triple roles,” Trippel says. “But like I keep saying, it’s just expected … that’s theater.”

Trippel petitioned AATE last winter to produce “Fences.”

“It just captivated me,” he says.

“It’s very poetic, very symbolic and it says a lot about the black culture in general,” Tippel says.

Employing his artistic license, Trippel has inserted blues and jazz numbers into the story to “represent the characters’ inner lives.”

“I thought it would be interesting if certain characters had certain theme music,” he said.

“I like to see some different kinds of theater,” said Julian Thomas, a Speech junior and the producer of the show. “When audiences see this kind of theater it hits them … it’s going to make you cry, it’s going to make you think, it’s going to make you change your views.” nyou