Some members of drama Troupe 6034 will compete in the One Act Thespian Festival on Friday. The superior rated team has been perfecting its performance in hopes of being chosen to be one of the five schools to move on to the State Festival. The school is going on its third year competing in the Festival.
“Two years we received a superior rating,” troupe director Maureen Fallon said via email. “Last year we received a superior, and we were chosen to take our one act to State Festival in March at Tampa.”
To make it to State, the troupe must be one of the top five out of 25 participating schools in the district. When they compete in the Festival, students, both actors and tech crew, have to perform complete plays in less than 40 minutes. This includes the time it takes to set up, perform and take down the set.
“Techies do the lighting, and they do the set-up and help us [actors] do the pick up afterwards because we have to set up and clean up really fast so we won’t be disqualified,” freshman Sara Tennant said.
The troupe will perform “The Other Room,” a one-act play written by a student at Fordham University.
“It’s a story about an autistic boy and what happens when he allows himself to trust a girl at his school,” Fallon said.
The autistic boy, Austin, played by Richard Klenotich, meets a girl, Lily, played Stephanie Delgado, and becomes friends with her. As the audience sees them talking and getting to know each other, they also hear what is going on inside his head. There are a few ‘voices’ in his head, like one voice that portrays the teenage boy inside him, played by Alex Colon, surrounded by a wall, which represents the barrier he puts up between himself and others. After talking to Lily for a while, he lets this wall fall down. But when she tries to give him a hug one day, he freaks out and the wall goes up again, and he loses her as a friend.
“It’s really sad,” Tennant said. “I like our one act a lot. It shows lots of emotion and relates to something real.”
Tennant also said the script selection is great because it incorporates a lot of people, and they all have big parts, even if they’re not speaking parts.
To incorporate all these speaking and dancing parts the troupe has rehearsals after school and on Saturdays.
“Everyone is really nice, and it’s really fun working together with them,” Tennant said. “[At rehearsals], we just kind of play around a little bit, but even without out Mrs. Fallon telling us to, we always get down to business and we work really hard on it. I think we’re going to do really good. I’m hoping that we’ll get in the top five because going to States would be so much fun.”
By Emily Dubec-Hunter
