Before the crew raises the curtains on the school’s latest play, the cast and directors are already working full-time behind the scenes. Preparing for the performance on Jan. 10-11, the two student directors began brainstorming the production on the first day of school.
“We read through a bunch of different scripts, and we picked a show that we think would give us the most amount of wiggle room,” senior student director Miah Lessner said.
In order to get this position, senior Cameron Sinclair and Lessner had to prove to theater and stagecraft teacher/director Minda Nyquist that they were up for the job.
“Minda just asked us to make a slideshow or something explaining to her what we would do if we were student directors; so what would we want to do, what experience have we had, what shows we have done and if we had any other experiences that would help us become a good director,” Lessner said.
The student directors take the lead and work with the cast to decide on a show.
“They did a lot of research, then we came up with three that are good, and we started reading them in class with the kids and seeing which [play] felt right,” Nyquist said.
The brainstorming led to different options for Lessner and Sinclair to choose from.
“We originally had two [plays] picked out, we had the murder mystery that we’re going to do and we had “Rise of Robinhood,” a fantasy one because we wanted two contrasting options of ‘a fantasy would be really fun and a murder would also be really fun.’ So it was just up to the cast and the people in the class to choose which one they think would be more fun to put on,” Sinclair said.
After all of the research and thought that went into the decision, the class finalized it and landed on the murder mystery titled, “Murder on the 518.”
“It’s very much like “Clue” if you know “Clue”, but it takes place on a train, where there’s surprises of things and people dying and we don’t know what it is,” Nyquist said.
Lessner and Sinclair work hand in hand with their different perspectives to bring this show to the stage.
“One is more technical [and] sees the show aspects, and the other sees more of the actors and the people, so I think it’s a good balance,” Sinclair said.
The pair uses this dynamic along with some input from Nyquist to put together their show. Along the way, they learn what works and what doesn’t.
“It’s mostly going to be me and Miah, but Minda will put in her input because while we’re student directing, she’s sitting there, surveying and observing. Maybe she’s seeing things from people that we haven’t, so she’ll give us some input of her thoughts, but in the end, it’s pretty much our decision,” Sinclair said.
Sinclair and Lessner had been wanting to be student directors since last year, inspired by peers who have directed the shows they acted in.
“I have had a bunch of different directors in the past being in Theater Two that influenced me, and seeing the work that they did made me realize it would be really cool to put on a show,” Lessner said.
The directors are very excited to see the finished product that comes after the blocking and memorizing.
“What I’m most excited for is to perform because I love performing so much, so to share what I love with a bunch of people and to put on a show that I fell in love with just to see how the show turns out I think will be really cool,” Lessner said.
