The 10th grade theatre class rehearsed and rehearsed to make sure the play went off perfectly… wrong!
“Pulling off a heist is pretty tough. But that’s nothing compared to pulling off a one-act adaptation of a popular heist movie. Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong when you’ve got a light board operator out for revenge, a dollar-store set and a cast that’s a total mess.” The website Playscripts, states.
On Wednesday January 23, Amy Crowl, the DP Theater Teacher, and her 10th grade theatre students performed The One Act Play Disaster written by Don Zolidis. Months of hard work came to final form as family, teachers, and friends took their seats in the audience and students prepared themselves to take the stage.
The experience of performing was quite invigorating,” shared 10th grade theatre student Andrew Cunningham. “I’m usually quiet and timid around people, so being able to let it all out onstage while destroying my voice frees me in great and socially acceptable ways.”
According to Crowl “the play is about a bad adaptation of Oceans 11, and is intentionally a lackluster version with terrible sets, actors in and out of character, last minute understudies going on stage, and all of the things you expect from a “bad” play.”
10th grade English teacher Mrs. Cullen who was in attendance shared “I enjoyed watching the audience “figure out” the concept of the play. At first, my students were asking, “Is this the play?” — because it began with disorganized improv — the chaos of a play going wrong from the very beginning. I thought it was inventive and brave — and I enjoyed that the actors in the play involved me”
The One Act Play Disaster demanded a lot from the theatre students. Mrs. Crowl explained “we chose this play as a class because it is a true comedy but it has layers, making it a challenge for sure…. It has a play-within-a-play structure which requires students to transition from playing actors to the roles within the play.”
“The actors needed quite a bit of physicality in this play,” Cullen reminisced. “…people fell down, were dragged off stage, etc. I thought they did a good job!”
Creating a play is no small feat. Large amounts of time and careful consideration go into every moment seen on an off stage. “Last class, for example, we worked on one 10 minute section of the play over and over again to get the timing right” Mrs. Crowl reflected.
After the shows, I was simply exhausted… because my performances were so energetic, I had no energy left afterwards. Of course, there is also the relief that the show is over, where two months of rehearsals produced a great show,” Cunningham remarked.
No matter the structure of the show, a play takes a lot of work to go perfectly. Presented with many challenges, the theatre students were given the opportunity to explore adversity and see the true meaning of “behind the curtains.”
Meridian looks forward to seeing what these risk-taking students and their knowledgeable teacher will come up with next for the big stage!
