A collaborative, student-produced play opens Tuesday night that follows a man’s challenges with personal relationships because of an uncommon disorder.

The doors for “Love Without a Face” open at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday for the 7 p.m. performance in the Roe Green Center’s Erdmann-Zucchero Theatre (black box theatre). Doors open at 11:30 a.m. for the second performance Wednesday at 12 p.m. The show is free, and seats are first come, first serve.

Steve Meshenberg, senior theatre studies major, wrote the play in three weeks about a man with prosopagnosia, a disease that doesn’t allow a person to recognize or remember people’s faces. The play will follow the man’s relationships; especially the one with a woman he thinks is his girlfriend. Meshenberg said the idea came from listening to a radio interview with a man who has the disease.

More than 25 people have volunteered to help put the play together.

“Everyone got together and threw out ideas and tried some of them until we all agreed on how it would go,” Meshenberg said.

Meshenberg said he personally knew a few of the play’s designers beforehand, but most of the team came from informal auditions. Many of the students involved are freshmen and sophomores who are taking part in a Kent State production for the first time. In addition to the team, the group has had many outside suggestions from people interested in the production.

Meshenberg said he wants the audience to reconsider viewing relationships in a normal sense, and he wants to make them think about their own relationships. He would like to have a discussion with the audience after the performance; he wants viewers to be able to voice their opinions talk with the cast and crew.

“I want to get the audience’s take on the play,” Meshenberg said. “I want to have a discussion and collaborate with them as well.”

Contact Brooke Bower at [email protected].