Members of the HRHS drama club presented a play called 13 Ways to Screw Up Your College Interview on the school stage to a large crowd. The cast and crew had been rehearsing for the performance since the end of September, and it prompted a lot of laughs from the audience. Jeannette Benoit-Leipert Meridian Source
The Holy Rosary High School (HRHS) drama club sparked a lot of laughs with their recent performance of a play called 13 Ways to Screw Up Your College Interview.
Director Steven Tian says the play was a good choice because it hit home to many members of the club who have their sights set on post-secondary education.
“This play—the humour was good for a high school, the content was good because a lot of students are going for their college interviews, and it’s split into a bunch of little scenes, so most of the characters—if they aren’t there for a day we can practise everything else,” said Tian, adding there are 14 students acting in the production, with a crew behind the scenes of about 10-12.
He says since they began rehearsing in late September, he has noticed a change in many of the participants leading up to the show on Nov. 30.
“Studying theatre helps you analyze—how does speech work, how do people end up in situations. How do you respond? I think that for our students this semester—the thing they’ve gained the most is probably confidence.
“They are a lot more comfortable speaking about themselves. Their voices are louder. That’s probably the best thing I’ve seen.”
Grade 12 student Zoe Klarenbach took on one of the main roles, playing interviewer number two. She says being involved in the production has been a bright spot for her.
“One of my favourite things also, is that when you’re on stage … usually in life you don’t have control over how people can see you and you have to do it on somebody else’s terms, but when you are on stage and you’re playing a character, that is you,” said Klarenbach.
“You have full control over everything and you get to decide. And I really like to be able to reclaim that part of myself, and step into it.”
Klarenbach has been quite comfortable performing on stage since she began training as a dancer at the age of four.
“I got into drama in the eighth grade and I found I liked it a lot more than dance because I got to portray a side of me nobody got to see.
“It helped me discover a lot of things about myself because you can’t play a character if you don’t know yourself first. You have to be able to understand how you work and translate that into how you think your character works because nobody plays the same character the same way.”
She also enjoys the camaraderie the drama club offers, not only with the other actors but the entire crew.
“You don’t always have to be on stage to be in drama. You can work in crew, which is amazing. I love the crew workers, they’re delightful.
“But also it helps you come to terms with a lot of things in your life and it’s a great place to work out, even if you don’t perform. I think it’s an amazing community.”
Tian says drama club attracts a unique group of people, each with their own strengths and weaknesses and when they work together they are able to create something wonderful.
“There’s a job for everyone. Tech people who run the lights and everything—everyone likes playing with the shiny things. And then you have people who are organizational, they want to help manage everyone—make sure props aren’t lost.”
“There’s those that wanna play with costumes and make-up. You have the ones who are basically taking care of all the actors—they tend to be a wild bunch. Someone has to organize them. Those are the team moms. We call them stage managers,” he laughed.
Tian said his path to drama was somewhat unexpected, as his father had his master’s degree in computer engineering, and he thought he would likely pursue a career in science as well.
“I went to an academic high school in Edmonton … and I had never taken a theatre course in my life. I went in there wanting to be a chemist, and then I took Chem 20 and realized I hated chemistry. I thought, well this is going to be a problem,” he joked.
“Coincidentally you have to take one PA option and they only offered four options—art, drama, music and computer science. So I took drama, and I just really enjoyed it and I just continued to take it. So I’ve done it now for 10 years.”
