Where the hell is Craigie Hall, and why is there a group of students in unitards stretching on the lawn? The department of drama at the University of Calgary can be a daunting place to visit.

If you’ve ever wondered what kind of insanity is cooking in this creative laboratory, now’s your chance to take a peek inside. Taking Flight: A Festival of Student Work celebrates its fifth year with nine student-fuelled productions including The Actor’s Nightmare by Christopher Durang, The Shawl by David Mamet, Phaedra by Jean Racine and A Kind of Alaska by Harold Pinter. There will be readings of new plays by students Meg Braem and Victoria Lee and a couple of projects that are distinctly Rabbit-flavoured.

Polygraph, co-written by two of the world’s most renowned contemporary theatre artists, Robert LePage and Marie Brassard, is directed for Taking Flight by Anton deGroot, best known for his work with One Yellow Rabbit and Downstage, and currently enrolled in the advanced directing class at U of C.

The play follows the story of François, a man accused of murder. He is given a polygraph test that proves his innocence, but the interrogator lies to him about the results. “He knows he didn’t kill her,” says deGroot, “but he’s told that the lie detector, which is supposedly proof, says that he did. He begins to doubt his own innocence.” Years later, things come to a head when his friend Lucie is cast in a film about the events, not knowing that François was involved.

The show is based on a true story: in 1980, a friend of LePage’s was murdered and he found her body. “He was given a polygraph exam, and he was lied to,” says deGroot. “He lived with that for two years, until the real murderer was found. In the midst of all that, a director in Montreal wanted to make a film of the event. Polygraph is inspired by that amazing true story, but it also questions the morality of basing fiction on actual events. It’s not an easy question to answer.”

The cast — Claire Bolton, Derek Holden and Cody Thompson — are all students in the bachelor of fine arts drama program, and must tackle the challenge of a play in which truth is relative. “Each of the three characters have a different version of the events,” says deGroot. “You can’t get the whole story from just one of them, and I think that will keep the audience slightly off-kilter. Did he? Didn’t he? You don’t know, but hopefully, you’ll make your own decision.”

Last month, deGroot had the rare opportunity to meet his show’s playwright when Marie Brassard was in Calgary performing The Invisible. He participated in a workshop with Brassard, and had the chance to chat with her about Polygraph. “I was incredibly nervous,” he admits, “but she was kind and open, and very excited about the project. When I showed her the picture of our polygraph machine, she said ‘Oh! It looks just like the one we used in our first show!’” That particular set-piece, an authentic polygraph machine, was rescued from dust-covered storage in the U of C’s department of psychology.

Ten years after Denise Clarke of One Yellow Rabbit staged Radioheaded, a “physical lecture” set to Radiohead’s OK Computer — a displaced, alien professor giving a lecture about the pop phenomenon of the album — she will return with a new interpretation in Taking Flight. “People have been asking me for years to remount Radioheaded, but it was specific to that time,” says Clarke. “But I’m still a huge fan, and I decided that I really wanted to look at In Rainbows.”

The result is Radioheaded 2: This is the 21st Century, a physical exploration of Radiohead’s newest album. The show was cast in an unusual way: “Whoever got in touch with me could be in it,” says Clarke. The large cast that emerged was heavily implicated in the creation of the show. “My staging was completely inspired by whoever was in front of me. The artists have a lot of ownership over what they’re doing onstage.”