Some students were given — and giving — some new direction last week at Holy Trinity Academy.
HTA presented its Short Play Festival Jan. 8-9, in which Grade 12 students direct their peers.
“For the kids, this is how they end their career in high school drama,” said HTA Drama instructor Wendy Doerksen. “The Grade 12 students direct these Grade 11 kids and they all come together and run the whole show – the tech, the front of house, they do it all.”
Cassidy Behm directed the play It’s Not You — and she’s a director, not a dictator.
Turns out listening is an important part of a director's role.
“(I’m) trying to get everybody involved — everybody has something to say about a certain scene,” Behm said. “You have to listen to everybody, but also come to some sort of consensus of what you will actually do and what is best for that scene.”
Although the directors listen, putting out a high-quality play isn’t a democracy — the buck stops with the person in the director’s chair.
“We have the final say,” said Mary Dmytriw, who co-directed the comedy The Dead Body Play with Chase Jordan. “We wanted to put on the show and we wanted it to be good.
“The Grade 11 who acted in our play would suggest something and Chase and I would either say, ‘yeah that works,’ or we would veto that idea.
“We are the directors, but we still wanted the actor’s input. He’s an important part of it.”
Short plays means you have to start quickly – get the audience engaged right away.
“We start by getting our scripts and we kind of make them our own,” Dmytriw said. “We go out on the stage with a bang — every little detail is perfect.
“You want to grab the audience’s attention right away.”
Grade 11 student Isaac Lee had a lead role in Matterhorn, about a married couple that discusses the family woes while in line at Disneyland’s famous ride.
It was directors Dexter Dodsworth and Starlisse Weflen who made sure the short-play wasn't a Mickey Mouse effort.
“As actors you have to know your lines, show up on time and bring your ideas to the table,” Lee said. “The director(s) is the one who kind of links everyone together to co-operate.”
He said it pays to listen to the directors.
“It’s fun to listen to everybody’s input,” Lee said. “You can play around with different lines — it expresses different emotions depending on how you say it.
“If it works, you can keep it, if it doesn’t you can leave it.”
As a Grade 11 student, Lee will have the director’s megaphone at next year’s short-play festival.
He hopes he will be ready.
“Organizing and listening to everybody’s ideas are the two things I take out of this year,” Lee said.
For Behm, the short-play festival was likely her last bow on the HTA stage.
That’s one of the things that makes the annual short-play so special, Doerksen said.
“This is the final hurrah together,” Doerksen said. “These kids have been on the stage together, some of them for three years, the final chance to showcase what they have learned in the drama program.
“The family we create on the stage over the last three years is really strong.”
