P lays
W hen I began directing plays for Onaway High School I found
that it was difficult to get just the right comedy script, so I wrote one. That led to
my students making requests, "I want to be a pirate captain next time," or "Can we do
another funny fairy tale?" and shows that fit our school’s drama preferences began to spin
around in my head.
M y philosophy: Amateur companies should have a place for all
actors and give them an opportunity to shine in some way. Therefore my stories have lots
of characters, some with many lines and some with just a few, but each character has something
"good". It’s hard to define, but actors know it when they see their own idea of personal glory.
For some it’s the achievement of a leading role, but for others it’s less ambitious, maybe a
single laugh or an interesting line or two that relatives proudly videotape. Neither the actors
nor the audience expects great theater, but they all deserve to have a good time.
D ifficulties in small schools:
- Lack of training - Most of my students won’t go into acting, will never "tread the boards"
after high school. The parts need to be easy to grasp and simple to project. They have
lots of other places to be and things to think about.
- Lack of sophistication - Our equipment, our stage, even our audience, is pretty basic.
We can’t do Broadway-type FX or long soliloquies under multi-faceted lights. We usually
start with grand ideas and settle in the end for what we can do well.
- Lack of males - This problem comes and goes, sometimes there are plenty of guys willing to
join and other times, especially in the early days, drama was not macho enough. In the
picture gallery you’ll see lots of girls in male roles, and we’ve done a good amount of
gender shifting in parts where, for example, a chatelaine will serve as well as a seneschal.
P ositives in small groups:
- Audiences - Virtually everyone in the audience at a small production knows the people
on the stage and wants them to do well. The crowd’s encouragement is a plus for the actors,
and with a comedy, that first laugh brings a collective sigh of relief backstage. I try to
make it come as early in the show as possible.
- Dedication - In a small town, drama productions, whether high school or community theater,
are a large part of the year, with everyone aware of and interested in "What are you doing
this time?" Actors get the message that everyone is watching, and they usually want to
perform well.
- Support - Amateur actors support each other in many ways, from "drafting" new members into
the program to serious intervention when a cast member isn’t working hard enough. Nothing
helps a director more than a little peer pressure on the guy who equates clowning with
acting or the girl who doesn’t think she needs to come to practice.
Links to Plays
Click below for write-ups on a few plays we've done.
