Before Facebook became a way of discovering social connections between people, the idea was presented in John Guare's 1990 play, Six Degrees of Separation.

Audiences can ponder the interconnectedness of the world tonight, tomorrow and Wednesday through the play, which is director Robert Schneider's first-year Master of Fine Arts (MFA) directing project.

The play explores this interconnectivity by following a young man, Paul, who claims to be the son of Sidney Poitier and gains access to high levels of New York society, but who harbors a secret.

"This is a play I've wanted to direct for a very long time," Schneider (graduate-theatre) said. "I read it 15 years ago and loved it, [but] I never found the right elements. I looked at the talents here at Penn State and said 'They can do it.' "

The cast consists of a mix of actors, including students, faculty members and people from the community, he said.

"For the leads I looked at graduate students and became familiar with their work," he said.

Quetta Carpenter (graduate-theatre) plays Ouisa Kittredge, whom she describes as an "Upper East Side society matron who is pretty and witty at dinner." When she meets Paul, played by Alano Miller (graduate-theatre), it's an "awakening moment, [and] she realizes her part in the world is bigger," Carpenter said.

"Paul is a young man who uses his imagination as a way to express what he wishes he could be," Miller said. "People can relate to hiding behind a mask. Paul is every man and every woman."

In 1993 a movie version of the play was produced, starring Stockard Channing.

"I've seen the movie once, and I made it a point not to see it [again] when I found out I was directing it," Schneider said. "All of the actors were brilliant in [the movie]. It's a beautiful, moving story."

The play has a "mature subject matter" and is "something everyone can relate to," he said.

"The audience is the most important part of the show," Carpenter said. "Anybody has to be struck with the idea of how the actions of one affect many. You can make it as small or as big of a story as you'd like."