For the November plays, the Acting 3-4 class presented adaptations of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” and Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon’s “Christmas at Pemberley.”
“All My Sons” follows the Keller family in 1947 rural Ohio, struggling with the aftermath of the WWII. The play outlines their emotional struggles in the gray zone of morality–how far do you go for your loved ones? Contrary, “Christmas at Pemberley” is an uplifting, humorous sequel to Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.”
“I think it was almost brilliant on [acting teacher Kim Taylor’s] part for producing these plays because they’re complete opposites,” said senior and advanced acting member Josh Rogers. “You could go support the acting program without having to deal with a super intense play. Or you could watch a production with more character development and emotional depth.”
Students in Acting 3-4, or the Advanced Acting class, auditioned for their parts when school began in August. However due to a shortage of male actors in “All My sons,” Taylor said she opened auditions to the Acting 2-3 class.
Elkins and sophomore Jackson Temple, Acting 2-3 students, were selected by Taylor to fill the spots. Elkins played the Kellers’ foolish neighbor Frank Lubey and Temple performed the troubled son-in-law.
“They are both freaking amazing actors,” Rogers said. “Just thinking about what they haven’t been exposed to yet is really amazing to see what they’ve been able to accomplish in these plays.”
Rogers said that in the Acting 2-3 class actors are exposed to Greek plays, which are often characterized by extremely dramatic playwrights similar to productions the advanced class puts on. These scenes prepare up and coming students who hope to join the advanced acting class.
“Just seeing that they haven’t had that experience and seeing how they could overcome that and still be insanely great in these plays was really awesome to see,” Rogers said.
While the two underclassmen partake in theater activities outside of school, Elkins said it was nerve-racking to be thrown in the spotlight and perform with the advanced acting actors.
After auditions, actors start memorizing their lines before a memorization deadline set by Taylor. Afterward, they run through their lines to work on the basic blocking or structure of the play–finding nuances in tone and energy.
“About halfway into the rehearsal process, we really start focussing more on the acting by developing out characters,” senior and advanced acting member Abigail Seevak said. “We spend a lot of time figuring out why our character’s say everything they do, what their goals are, and what their relationships to other characters are like.”
However, “All My Sons” was written in the mid-1900s, and the language of the time is very different from today, Seevak said.
“It’s almost like Shakespeare and that you have to decipher what the characters are really saying,” Seevak said. “This also made it kind of tricky to memorize lines because there are a lot of repeated or augmented phrases.”
Similarly, actors in “Christmas at Pemberley” had to adopt British dialects, Taylor said.
Another challenge was the fact that “All My Sons” took place over a twenty-four-hour time frame. As a result, the main characters Joe Keller (Rogers), Chris Keller (junior Salar Jalinous), Kate Keller (senior Olivia Weebe), and Ann Deever (Seevak) were on stage for a majority of the play, Seevak said.
“We had to work really hard on maintaining the energy and mindset of our characters for long period of time which is something different from many shows where you get to take a break offstage and recharge,” Seevak said.
The hours of rehearsing and interacting with each other has brought the cast closer together, Elkins said. Even though they are not always acting like themselves, connections are created.
“The community that theater brings is so strong,” Elkins said. “Every time I act in a play, I just feel so connected to those people. It’s like a little family.”
