Everyone was so excited about the show! Many people have said that this is the best show our school has put on, which is a big compliment considering: 1. It was student written and directed, 2. It was the first play in the chapel, 3. It was the first play that involved video, 4. We have a reputation of big productions, 5. The Play was called the Play of Awesome. Who would want to go to a play titled awesome that was less than awesome? So there was quite a lot on the line and I'm so thankful everyone loved it!
Another drama tradition is having the after party at Village Inn. Eating breakfast food at midnight? Awesome.
There's something funny about the next two photos ...
That photo of Matt and I was taken a year ago. This just further proves that Mr. Benson and Miss Williams, and Matt and I are the same people!
top row from left to right: Rory, Graysen, Mary, Alex, Holly (our stage manager), John, Matt, Me
bottom row: Jenna, Amy, Shannon, Steve, Caleb, Mr. Benson (our drama teacher), Miss Williams (our interpreter)
What started out as nothing more than a crazy idea turned into the best production ever. I am never going to forget the memories I made or the people I made them with.
To sum up how the play was in one word: AWESOME!
After our drama department knew we wanted to write a play of awesome for the spring show, we immediately began auditions. It's always cool how perfect for the parts each person is, and one of the cool things about this play is that we were each playing ourselves! That made for all our efforts to go into improvisation and projection and more technical aspects of the show rather than portraying a character contrary to ourselves.
Not only were we perfect for the parts, but we were perfect for each other. The cast became like a big huge family and I seriously love every single person involved with this show. I don't think I could ever stress how thankful I am for this cast.
(I also think these were the coolest shirts ever.)
A funny little fact about the show is that Neil, the author, (and you can read his blog here!) is Canadian, and one of our main characters, Caleb, is Canadian! He had a cute little moose that sang songs about Canada and he even made a couple appearances on the stage. Hooray for Canada!
We were worried about there being too much black and white on the stage, so some of our favorite awesome things that had been cut from the show were redeemed with a spot on one of the flats!
I got the idea to do a giant mural for our "family room," complete with some family portraits!
There are a lot of traditions for our shows, one of which is doing a chant before we perform. We added a couple new traditions though, such as singing "We Are Young" at the top of our lungs and dancing backstage. Yeah, we're crazy drama kids.
This is the book that started it all.
One thing in particular about this show that was different was the fact that we got to perform it all week. It was always sad in the past to work for multiple months on a show that we only performed for two nights. (Granted all the shows in the past were very stressful so two nights was about all we could take!) The Play of Awesome was virtually stress free because of the small cast, I think. No having to deal with a 40+ member choir and 20+ person cast. A little bit really does go a long way.
It's funny though because I'm sad that this show is over, even though it's been extended for so long. I just want to perform it again!
There was a lot of improv involved with this show, just because the script was flexible enough for us to do so. This left for many a laugh behind the stage. Some of the things people said on stage were just too funny! And we could laugh because the audience was laughing louder than we were, so they didn't notice us chuckling backstage(for the most part, hehe).
Aaah just look at how beautiful that set is!
Stay tuned for a post about the actual performances and the after party!
