Drama Troubles

Annie Kocvara, Journalist

   Drama, typically it is a class or club that students can practice plays or actually perform them on the stage. Some classes have difficulty getting their feet off the ground to do the play.

  Some people get nervous really easily when they are in front of a crowd, so maybe some people could not remember their lines because they are too nervous. Or they just didn’t want to be in the play in the first place, so they just didn’t care to remember their lines.

The boy on the right (Glendon Casia) performs his part for the Variety Show, February 7th, and the one of the left fills in for his partner.

   The Drama teacher, Mrs. Kolodzieczyk, gave me some insight on what had happened with the upcoming play, Sleepy Hollow. Students have time to memorize their parts and then they are to be ‘off book,’ meaning they no longer can use their books on stage. After several weeks of rehearsal and numerous attempts to get students off the book a few, including the lead, did not have their parts down.”

  Mrs. Kolodzieczyk felt bad leaving the play like that, but she felt that it would be best to cancel it. She didn’t want to them to perform a play that they weren’t ready for. She also said that they spent a good deal of money on the play as well as so much time on getting the production rights and costumes.

  I asked what students were involved, but she didn’t give me names, instead of saying that they were students in the English and Drama classes.

  Her thoughts, “It is extremely disheartening and disappointing. We are trying to rebuild the theater program, but if students are not going to take it seriously and be dedicated to it, it won’t work,” and it’s sad.

Morningstarr Vella performs her monologue for the Variety Show.

  I also talked to Mollendorf, an advisor for the Drama class, to see how he felt about the whole ordeal, and he said, “I hated to see it get canceled because there were many students who worked hard. We have an idea that we can just come in and not do things 100% and in order to build a good theater program and or any other program in school you have to be 100%”

  On the topic of new plays and how he thinks they will go, Mollendorf said “There will be 2 new plays, they are short. We have a pretty good cast, but a lot of people in that cast were the ones who were prepared for the fall one [Sleepy Hollow]. I think some students learned some lessons, we’ll see, I’m optimistic.”

One play will be a Variety Show, where kids do short skits throughout the show. It will be February 7th at 7pm, and they tickets will be $3 for students and $5 for adults.

   I used to be in Drama, so this makes me feel disappointed in the students who “caused” this. If you’re in drama and the teacher says that there is going to be a play, all the students should be involved to get their grades. And if they are involved, they should actually try and memorize their lines, not mess around and try to learn their lines last minute.

   I really hope the next play will actually go as planned and a lot of money won’t get thrown away, and I hope students will actually care.