No Refund Theatre (NRT) kicks off its upcoming season with more bang for --well, for no bucks-- with two free shows this weekend.

Over the River and Through the Woods and the one-act play Foreplay or The Art of the Fugue are set to open in the Forum Friday and Saturday night.

For the first time in their history, NRT is introducing one-act plays into its repertoire because many members wanted to direct their own plays, John Interrante (junior-predmedicine) said.

"The one acts have big potential and are a great way to open shows," Interrante, assistant director of Foreplay, said. "Hopefully they stay as a tradition with NRT to accommodate a time slot for directors."

Foreplay or The Art of The Fugue by David Ives will start the night.

The play was described by actress Katie Arbulu (senior-theater), who plays the part of Alma, as "one big sex joke."

"The play is about Chuck, who's a smooth talker with the ladies -- he takes three girls on separate dates mini-golfing," Director Jess Carter (junior-English) said. "During the dates he tells the same jokes and uses the same cheesy pickup lines, and the three girls have very different responses."

Many of the players mentioned how the humor in the play is contained within the sexual innuendoes comparing sex and mini-golf.

The main show this weekend is Over the River and Through the Woods, a modern play by Joe DiPietro, dealing with the generation gap in society.

The play tells the story of Nick, played by Andrew Boetcher (freshman-musical theater). He is an upstart, young, career-driven Italian from Hoboken, N.J., living with all four of his grandparents.

After he is offered a promotion away from home, they try to convince him to stay in Hoboken and immerse himself in their more tradition-oriented lifestyle.

"It shows the generation gap between the grandparents' traditions of culture and their younger counterpart in Nick, who is looking for a more personal self discovery," Director Josh Rebuck (sophomore-education) said.

The grandparents go so far as to set Nick up on a blind date with a family friend's niece, Katelin, played by Kaira Klueber (junior-marketing and theater). The attempt at Cupid falls through, causing Nick to have a panic attack, forcing him to stay with his grandparents for the time being.

"Katelin is trying to find someone to settle down with, but Nick sometimes has little annoyances with his family and that bothers her," Klueber said. "She would like to see him value that relationship better. So a lot of girls might identify with that, so in that sense Katelin is fun to play."

The study of the characters unfolds as Nick soon sees his grandparents as people instead of one huge alliance, pressuring him into family-oriented goals.

He learns more about them and why they believe their lifestyle is better for him than the corporate-based attitude of the modern world.

Arbulu said she thinks the plays will be a fun way to kick off the season.

"It's a good way to start the semester off with a laugh, one thing the whole campus could get if they came," said Arbulu. "But you'll have to go to the show to see how it all works out."