by Riley Wootten, reporter
The Drama Club performed two shows this year including “Singing in the Rain” and “The One-Act Play That Goes Wrong.” These shows have been a big hit at Fairhope High School and have given drama students an opportunity to perform their acting skills on the big stage.
Actors performed their most recent play “Singing in the Rain” in the Black Box Theatre April 4-8. The leads for the spring play “Singing in the Rain” include Lyric Hall as Kathy Seldon, Rawlin Hoffman as Don Lockwood and Reuben Rockwell as Cosmo Brown.
The play “Singing in the Rain” showcases the complex singing, dancing and acting in one performance. The student actors practiced for months for this performance and executed it flawlessly.
“We process each role by holding auditions and we watch each student’s monologue, dance segment and song and whoever did the best in all three categories is more likely considered in leading roles,” said Hannah Rogers, theater teacher and director. “There is also a balance because sometimes we will sacrifice one area if a student is really good in the other two areas of performance.”
These students not only perform but also create the sets for their plays, meeting on weekends to produce scenery. This hard work shows how much of a commitment Drama students have as can be seen in their performances.
“Drama Club has created a home for me at school. Being a part of the Drama Club I’ve learned to branch out and to be more confident in myself as a human being and performer,” Hall said.
Drama Club has built many friendships and grown many students’ acting ranges. These plays show students how to build their confidence and incorporate that into their performance.
Each play requires months of acting practice and building sets to bring the students’ performance to life and grant the audience the best show possible. To be a part of the Drama Club is a team effort and requires much time to meet its high standards.
“We started two weeks later than anticipated, which was definitely a setback. Filming the movie clips was also very daunting, but we got it all done. It was a lot of fun to brainstorm and work with the directors, cast, and crew for this show and I am so beyond proud of what we achieved,” said Maggie Ray Brown, stage manager.
The shows are built on creativity and give each student a chance to experience acting in each role. This club does a great job of working together to create unique characterized performances.
Theater teacher Hannah Rogers serves as the director for each of these plays and gives each student a certain role in each show. These roles include set manager, cast, crew and director. The set manager is in charge of organizing rehearsals and keeping track of the cast while their role is to perform to the best ability and the crew is responsible for making sure everything runs smoothly and is performed correctly.
“Each play is so different because with a regular play with no music, they can mainly rely on their acting but with a musical, they are also having to incorporate music and dancing so I would say that they have become just more well-rounded actors in general,” Rogers said.
The Drama Club has dedicated time and practice to each play and continues to show their hard work in every performance. Next year’s fall show is sure to wow the crowd!
