After converting her thesis into a play, Adams rented a theater in New York for four sold-out shows. The feedback was so enthusiastic that she and Jon Goracy, the movie's director and Adams' boyfriend, considered turning it into a movie.
Despite failing to reach a $200,000 fundraising goal through a Kickstarter campaign earlier this year, media attention from The Huffington Post and Refinery29 proved effective in attracting private investors. The project has received $300,000 from independent movie financiers.
Though they may need to raise more, Adams said that the funds will carry them through filming and editing. The crew hopes to finish post-production by the end of the summer to be eligible for fall film festivals.
"I'm Obsessed with You" involves four friends in an improvisation group, including a character played by Adams, who are about to graduate from the fictional Darby College. The night before the commencement ceremony, the group has a falling out after the arrival of movie star Freddie Diaz, Darby's commencement speaker. Five years later, one member of the group begins to find a way to reunite them.
Though the film is an ensemble comedy that includes romance and relationship drama, Adams said it will focus on the group of artists as a whole and "the breakup of a working organism." She wants the film to capture the colorful events and people she saw at Dartmouth as a member of Casual Thursday.
Now, after a week in the Hamptons and a few rainy days in New York, production is near the halfway point. The crew plans to spend two weeks on campus, filming outdoor locations and dorm scenes, swimming at the river docks and staging a party scene at Alpha Delta fraternity this Friday.
They will also use "guerrilla footage" of this year's Commencement, Adams said.
The crew plans to recruit student volunteers as extras in the fraternity basement scene. Clark Moore '13, who is in charge of finding students for the campus shoot, said that scheduling has been a challenge.
"It's cool to have a lot of Dartmouth people working on it, especially since it's sophomore summer," he said. "And that's kind of like the name of the tune, try something out that you've never done before."
Moore has used his resources as an actor on "Glee" and as a member of the Dartmouth Aires to help with publicity and fundraising. In addition to filming a promotional video for the Kickstarter campaign and acting as a campus liaison, he has a small part in the film.
"When Gen told me she was making it into a film, I was just really excited to become involved with it," he said.
Max Moran '12, who is in charge of costumes, and Marguerite Imbert '11, an actress in the film and its art designer, became involved from the project's beginning through their friendship with Adams.
"It's so close to our hearts, this movie and the characters in it," Imbert said.
Though the group has been busy working on the production of the film, they faced the challenges by collaborating.
"In independent filmmaking, that's what you have to do," Moran said. "If something needs getting done, you do it."
Adams spent six months recruiting people to participate in her film, and it currently features crew members from Italy, Poland, Spain and Syria.
"We have such amazing people," Adams said. "That, for me, is why I always wanted to be in plays."
Though being back on campus as an alumna has been "weird," Adams said that she is enjoying the chance to share her alma mater with coworkers and friends.
"I'm not making this movie for Dartmouth," she said. "If anything, it's to show other people what the place is like."
While Darby will closely resemble Dartmouth, it does not represent it, Adams said. Legal stipulations prevent the movie from drawing any close parallels.
So when Imbert suggested adding "artistic texture" with a scene involving protesters shouting, "Darby has a problem," Adams shook her head.
"As much as I appreciate the texture," she added.
