Fall is always a busy season for the SHS Drama Club. Every year, we present a non-musical, or straight play, to start the season off. This year, however, we’ve decided to do something different. The show we’re putting on, The Curious Savage, by John Patrick, will be performed on Friday, November 22nd, and Saturday, November 23rd, as theater in the round in the Performing Arts Center. Due to the specialized stage seating, both performances are sold out.
A theater in the round is a show in which the audience is up close to the stage on most or all sides of the theater. This is the first time our club has tried a show like this, and as a result, rehearsals are a bit different. First, we had to learn how to act on every side of the stage. Usually, when you’re in a show, you’re facing outward in one direction toward the audience. But with a theater in the round, you are facing people on every side of the stage, and as such, turning your back toward the audience is not an issue, but there is less room for error.
Our director, SHS faculty member Elizabeth Clancy, picked the club’s fall play. The spring musical was voted for by the drama club members. This year, we are performing The Prom.
Auditions for The Prom will be held on December 4th and 5th from 3:00 to 6:00 PM. The show will include a large cast, so if you’re considering trying theater for the first time, this is a good show to join. Sign up for auditions using the QR code on posters around the school by December 1st. According to Clancy, all the information students need is on the required form. Interested students can also stop by Room 271 if they have questions. Clancy commented, “It’s a comedy, it’s bright, it’s fancy, and there won’t be any cuts for this show,”
Students can be involved with a Drama Club production in two main ways: You can either act or be part of a tech crew.
On the acting side, rehearsals are slow-paced and help you get in tune with the script and where you should be onstage. This allows actors to get a skeleton of their role in the show so that when later rehearsals and tech week roll around, they have a stable foundation to add the final touches to their character.
On the tech side of things, our crews figure out what is needed for the show. The costume crew picks out how many outfits are needed for each character, and sound and lights do equipment checks to make sure everything is equipped for the show, along with the many other crews working to make sure the show runs smoothly. This is when the actors really begin working on their movement and position onstage. These rehearsals, or “blocking rehearsals,” give the actors a deeper understanding of their lines and positioning onstage during a scene.
As the show approaches Tech Week, or the final week of rehearsals before the show, things begin to kick into gear, both onstage and backstage. Tech is finalizing what is done and what needs to be done during tech week, as well as gathering all the necessary equipment for the actors. Actors have tried on costumes, gathered their supplies for hair and makeup, and have (hopefully) communicated with the tech crew on where they are in these processes. On the rehearsal side, the cast runs the show all the way through without stopping. As I write this, we are embarking on Tech Week for The Curious Savage, and if all goes well, we should be right on track.
Tech Week is, without a doubt, in anybody’s mind, the most grueling but important part of any production. In the week leading up to the show, rehearsals that had previously run until 6:00 PM now go until 9:00 PM. Actors run the entire show at least twice a night while the tech crew fixes any issues that may come up. This goes right up to the show night, with more and more layers being added to the show each day.
Believe it or not, the opening night of a production is always a blur. You’ve run through the show for months, but now there is an important difference: a couple hundred people are watching. When it’s all said and done, it’s always a bittersweet feeling. You’ve worked so hard for so long on this production, and just like that, the show is over. You take down the sets, put the costumes away, and that’s the end.
Being involved in theater at SHS is truly a magical feeling. You work with a group of people willing to dedicate themselves–and several months out of their year–to a two-hour performance. I’m glad I’m involved, and I can confidently say that everybody else in the club is, too.