With so many people often wondering what theater production really entails, theater teacher Caleb Francis has decided to modify the class to better address this question for both himself and his students.
“I always joke that everybody was kind of like ‘What is theatre production?’” Francis said. “ … So, I just decided I wanted to kind of flip the script on it a little bit, because the middle school theater, they do and go compete with the shows, so I was like, ‘Well, we have a thespians program, so I would love to do that with the high school kids as well.’”
Before the Theatre Production class was changed, students would help with things such as tech, set building and show promotion for the musicals and plays. However, the class has now added a new addition to the course, which is performance.
On Dec. 7, they will go up to Noblesville High School, where they will present their One Act, a play that consists of a single act that can last from 20 to 40 minutes, to a panel of judges, who will score them.
The competition is the Indiana State Thespians Regional Competition held by Indiana Thespians.
Each school participating in the competition will have 45 minutes, and nothing more, to set, perform and strike, to take down a set after a production has concluded. There are six high school regionals, and the top two plays from each will advance to the state competition.
During summer break, Francis was reading a script a day to decide what One Act they would be performing for the competition. He later decided that the competition piece would be “100 Things I Never Said to You,” a play set in a high school gymnasium during an assembly, in which students say things they never got to say to their deceased classmate.
With the chosen play, there are no set roles. The students had to choose the lines that they saw fit for the characters that they themselves had created to play, such as senior Lizzie Forrester playing the ex-lover and junior Nienna Wittlief as a little sister figure.
Some of the students in the Theatre Production class have expressed how happy they are in the class and how excited they are about the competition.
“I’m so excited … ,” Forrester said. “The people that are gonna be there will have been acting for a while, so I think it’s just gonna be great to meet new people from other schools that have the same interest as me.”
