(FIRST STORY) Dramatic arts, our second week of school

A cluster of high schoolers; freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors. They all have something they want; the main role. This year’s play is called the Diviners. It is set during the 1930’s and it is about a teenage boy, who lives in India during the Great Depression.

Earlier this month, the kids auditioning have drama workshop and try outs. Over the long weekend, they have prepared a monologue for their audition. The actors and actresses must have prepared for hours, some may have not, but the kids go in, some scared and some confident.

The crowd is of a decent size, twenty kids at the most.There were a few clusters of friends. Others alone. The ones with friends were more chatty as the people without looked like they were frantically reviewing their monologue. All waiting to be heard and commented by Jonathan.

The leader of the drama club, Jonathan begins to speak, “Your monologue is tomorrow! If you feel comfortable, you will perform in front of us, as if you were auditioning. If any of you are uncomfortable, you can go outside with Patrick.” There are four leaders: two girls, two boys.

Senior Patrick Ortiz (Center) and Sophmore Morgan Baker (Left) review their monologues Photo by Nichole Delany
Photo by Nichole Delany

Kids come up performing their monologue, trying to impress the leaders. “Too quiet, work on volume. Too much motion, cut that out,” they would say, overlapping their points. Occasionally, Ms. Harms, leader of the drama class, would step in.

One kid trying, she was the third or four; Taylor was doing a monologue about her personality, trying to decide what she wanted to be. Her character would go back and forth; did she want to be an actress or a singer? She couldn’t decide. In the end, she still didn’t know what to do, she was bullied, the end was sudden, but it was something most teenagers could relate to.

Finally the next day arrived, stuck in a frenzy of excitement. Who was going to get in? Who wasn’t? No one knew. Finally the moment arrived when everyone was in the auditorium, easily fifty people auditioning for an eleven person play.

The stress level rises as they await Ms. Harms instruction. She tells everyone to go to the gym because they accidentally double-booked. When we get up there, they play a game, where they stretch their voices. After that, the upperclassmen begin to audition. One after one, they go up and back down. They know the routine.

Stephen, a junior, stands out, quite different than the others, where as most are dramatic, this one was comedic. He is describing the usage of eating utensils. His character looks to be talking to a baby, and he is trying to teach a baby to talk. Though it could mean a hundred different things.

Finally, we go back into the auditorium and the lower classmen look terrified, worrying that they won’t do well or forget their lines. Everyone remains positive though, they know even if they don’t get in this play, that their time will come.

By Ashley Chapman