With the turn of the year approaching, student playwrights, directors, and actors gather in the PMAC to prepare for the 2018 Fringe Festival performances. Fringe Festival consists of slam poetry, music, and plays produced and performed by theater-passionate Choaties. The Fringe Festival performances will be shown on February 8th and 9th. Auditions for acting roles in the plays took place during the first days of the winter term.
“We held two nights of open auditions. Kids came and read monologues for all of the directors, any writers who were free, and me, and then we sat together and the directors put the actors into roles,” said Ms. Doak, head of the Fringe Festival productions. “We tried to make sure each actor was in two plays so that they have enough of a part to give them something to do all term. That’s the process each year.”
There will be five student-written and directed plays for the 2018 Fringe Festival: YAWEH, Princess Club, Enlightenment, Everything Will Be Alright, and The Last Burrito. Each play is different in its topic, theme, and tone.
“Enlightenment shows how difficult it can be to relax, especially when someone is snoring,” said Kate Newhouse ’18 . “The Last Burrito is about a group of scavengers facing the apocalypse,” Austen Rogers ’18 said of her play.
“Writers do not participate in Fringe as an after school activity, so they are not required to come to rehearsals. But writers may always come to rehearsals if they would like,” said Newhouse. “Shows have one-hour long rehearsals about twice a week. However, every actor is in more than one show and will go to rehearsal as many times as the plays they are in are called.”
Participating in the Fringe Festival requires time commitment in the afternoons and weekly rehearsals. Writers, directors, and actors dedicate varying amounts of time towards rehearsals and production, ranging from occasional visits to rehearsals to even spending extra time outside of the regular afternoon activity block.
“My time commitment as a director is two hours of rehearsal per week and one hour of production meeting per week, but I also spend a fair amount of time outside of formal rehearsals prepping for rehearsals,” Rogers said. “When it gets closer to the performance, I will spend more time producing the set and costumes for my play. Some of our actors also spend time outside of rehearsals preparing songs, monologues, or slam poetry to perform at the Fringe.”
“At this point in the process, the focus is really on the writers and their work to shape their pieces towards the production with their directors. The Fringe doesn’t go up until February, so we are sort of in a lull period now, as we start up rehearsals,” Ms. Doak said. “We’ve had one group read through all the plays, and each cast has had one rehearsal. In a month or so, the directors will have a stronger sense of their process and would love to get the school looking towards their productions.”
Rogers added, “Although we’ve just begun our rehearsals, they have definitely been productive. For my play we’ve been working on building a sense of team, because that’s something I think is really important for a group of actors.” She continued, “When actors are familiar with each other and trust each other, that translates on stage.”
