The drama class had been working hard these past one and a half weeks, although they’ve been learning throughout the year, all to put on a show for you!  Students memorized scenes, scored the racks of Goodwill for costumes, and put on the tears in preparation for The Masque: An Evening of Theater.

On Thursday, May 15, the hard work finally paid off in one big performance.  We started off with “Monologues with Growing Pains,” a series of short pieces, starring Taylor Daake in “The Mall with Mom”, Jayci Tanquary in “In Through the Out Door”, Maya Dervisevic in “Commission Mission,” Paige Lockwood in “First Date,” and Tristen Young in “Just a Date”.  All presentations were either hilarious or emotional, as they were meant to be, and surprised me, as all of these students were beginners.

Then students in “Who is the Character and What’s the Objective?” had their turn.  “Hotness”, performed by Hannah McGerty, eighth grader, and Kenzie Knippers, eighth grader, really stood out to me as funny and relatable, as did “Hanging Out”, with Alexa Marshall, eighth grader, and Anna Cochrane, seventh grader, “Physical Education”, with Jessica Espinoza, seventh grader, and Amy Kendree, eighth grader, and “Not the Next Cheerleader”, with Finley Lindsey, seventh grader, and Tessa Daake, eighth grader.

Katy Abbe then braved the stage to talk about her all-original scene “White Pansies and Gold Clouds,” performed by juniors Bennett Wood and Karley MacArthur.  The scene proved itself as romantic, awkwardly adorable, and outright funny throughout the performance and the acting fit the characters completely.

We moved on to “Student Written and Directed Scenes”, which were exactly as the title of the segment suggested.  Anna LaBatt, sophomore, wrote, directed, and starred in the scene “What Happened to Us?”, bringing forth an emotional show along with Sydney Kerr, sophomore.  Azalea Lopez wrote, directed, and starred in the scene “The Day Time Left” with Tiana Oster, freshman, and Seth Freymuth, eighth grader, an intriguing performance about the rivalry between Space and Time.  In “Gone But Not Forgotten”, Katie Shepard, freshman, wrote and directed with Cam Oakes, sophomore, and Karli Richards, sophomore in a scene about a metaphorical wall.  “Goodbye” was written and directed by Haylee Haupt, who also starred with Bianca Pizorno, both eighth graders, who acted as seniors about to move to faraway colleges.  Elisa Scott, freshman, acted with seventh grader Armando Delgado, in her written and directed scene “The Sky Smiled Back”, about a judgmental girl who faces her mistakes through a wise boy.

“The Art of Emotion” was up next, starting with Morgan Henson, junior, in “I Ate the Divorce Papers”.  The performance was emotional and real as she talked to her “husband” about their divorce being a joke.  “Quiet Chaos” featured senior Grant Norwil as a conflicted boy in love.  Noah Weiss, sophomore, yelled about his anger in “The Screenwriter to His Father”.  “Happy Endings”, a tale about the healing power of fairy stories, had Ella Coste performing with bittersweet sentiment.  Haley Glew stunned the audience with “Dear Dad”, a tense monologue about a teen writing to her convict father.  Senior Rob Dixon finished his last drama performance with “Confession”, a piece about a boy’s admittance of love to a dear friend.

“Classic Monologues” featured “Farewell”, with junior Cristiana Shand, who described the pain her romantic interest had brought her.  Senior Walker McMullen played Petruchio in “To Tame a Wife”, delivering a hilarious performance that translated the Shakespearean language with emotion.  Shakespeare expert Meredith Pendleton, junior, performed “All the World’s a Stage” in a solid performance.

“The Play is the Thing” was my favorite category with some of my favorite performances, like “I’m Pretty”, starring Stephanie Clark, seventh grader, and Sean McElrath, junior.  The scene was about accepting your true beauty, and the talented duo pulled it off perfectly.  Elijah Anderson, seventh grader, and Mary Steward, sophomore, acted in “First Meeting”, about a disabled boy and an orphaned girl’s first meeting in her new home.  Then Kendra Fuller and Lauren Bander, seventh graders, performed “Scarlet Fever”, which described the panic of scarlet fever in the 1800s.  “Psych Eval” proved to be hilarious, with senior Dylan Freymuth reaching deep down for his bumpkin impersonation, and sophomore Jackson Van Der Pol who veered into the professional personality.  Jaime Faulkner, senior, and Jason Wakely, sophomore, reenacted “If I Were a Man”, with several mistaken fade outs.  Despite the technical difficulty, the pair pushed through to talk about the power (and weakness) of men in Shakespearean times.  In “The Threat”, performed by Katy Abbe, senior, and Erik Stahl, junior, a man threatens to ruin another’s career with a letter, leaving the wife with something to think about.

Finally, Sean McElrath, junior, and Amanda Clark, junior, starred in “The Slippers”, which created a passionate, and occasionally humorous, finale for the Masque.  Emotions roiled as a young woman came to terms with the fact that she had no place in the world after having learned to be a lady, and her caretaker’s angry response.

Overall, the Masque was astoundingly impressive and something I am sure to go to again.  Drama students adopted their roles and showed what they had worked on throughout their time in the class as they closed the curtain on the year.