WATERVILLE — Gayle Giguere called to the cast and crew members who were mingling both on and off stage.
“Actors, come out for a minute please — quickly,” she said.
The eight actors and several members of the technical crew rehearsing for “The Game’s Afoot” assembled at center stage around a green settee and chairs from the 1930s.
Giguere, Waterville Senior High School’s drama director, gave instruction from the auditorium floor. “You need to really enunciate and put the volume up,” she told the cast.
Then, motioning to the technical crew in the lighting box at the rear of the auditorium, she added: “The gunshot needs to be louder; the seance music needs to be quieter.”
It was Monday, five days before the Maine Drama Festival starts, and the thespians were honing their one-act play for entry in the Class A finals, to be held Friday and Saturday at Camden Hills Regional High School. Set in 1936, the Waterville-produced play is a Sherlock Holmes-type whodunit comedy — a farce that takes place in a Connecticut mansion where, as Giguere aptly delineates, “bodies start to pile up.”
“It’s hilarious and the kids have had a great time with it,” she said.
Giguere pared down the two-act, two-hour play written by Ken Ludwig to a one-act show that runs about 38 minutes.
The drama festival, sponsored by the Maine Drama Council and the Maine Principals’ Association, requires the plays be one act and no longer than 40 minutes. The crew must put up the set in five minutes and strike it in five. Judges at the state event look at all sorts of criteria, including interpretation of play, presentation, blocking, individual and ensemble performance, character, voice, body movements and gestures, costumes, lighting, sound, makeup and visual set and properties.
The Waterville school is one of four from central Maine that competed earlier in the month at regional drama festivals and won. This coming weekend, they proceed to the states, with the Class A, or larger schools, to compete at Camden Hills, and Class B, or smaller schools, to compete at George W. Stearns High School in Millinocket.
Waterville’s performance at Camden Hills will take place at 6 p.m. Friday; Lawrence High School in Fairfield will perform “Excerpts from the Laramie Project,” by Moises Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project, at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, also at Camden Hills. Waterville and Lawrence will compete against South Portland, Oceanside, Oxford Hills, Bonny Eagle, Westbrook and Falmouth high schools.
Winslow High School will perform “Tribunal,” by Alan Haehnel, at 6 p.m. Friday at Stearns; Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield will perform “These Shining Lives,” by Melanie Marnich, at noon Saturday at Stearns. Winslow and MCI will compete against Lee, Foxcroft, Lincoln and Baxter academies, as well as Freeport, Mount Desert Island, Ellsworth and Lisbon high schools.
Finalists at the states will compete in April at the New England Drama Festival, held in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.
WEEKS OF PREPARATION
Students, directors and crews have been preparing for competition for more than two months, and in some cases, they have worked together for years in theater.
Many of the Waterville students, for instance, have been in theater productions together since the sixth grade, so it is no wonder they took away an award for ensemble at the regionals.
As they rehearse on stage, they interact comfortably, having worked together and known each other so long. They also know Giguere and what she expects, since she has been drama director and an English teacher at the school for 18 years. Giguere is strict, but forgiving; tough, but kind.
“During February break we rehearsed every day — two, 2 1/2 hours,” she said. “I asked this cast, if you’re going away for February vacation, do not apply. This is the competition play. This is the one where you really have to put your best foot forward.”
The Waterville students and those from other central Maine schools competing at the states love theater. Many are also in orchestra, band and chorus.
“We’ve got so much talent in Maine for theater and theater arts,” Giguere said. “You have to bring your best game to the table and you hope it’s good enough.”
In live theater, things happen, she said. For instance, during a performance of another play the students did, a door onstage kept opening repeatedly. That had never happened in rehearsals or prior performances. Just last week, the students were to have performed their one-act for a school assembly, but most of the cast and crew were sick, so it had to be postponed.
“Out of 32 of us, all but three got it, and I am one of the three,” Giguere said.
Actors Alan Baez, Isabella Labbe, Ty Lecrone, Julia Badaraco, Jonathan Thompson and Callie Rogers, all 17; Hanna Comfort, 16; and Emma Jones, 14, gathered onstage after the rehearsal with Ana Drew, assistant director and stage manager, to talk about their work together and how much they have loved being in theater. The camaraderie theater work creates is exceptional, they said.
“It’s a great way to make friends,” Baez said. “I’ve met most of my friends in high school just doing the drama productions.”
“We have great chemistry because we’re all such good friends,” Rogers added.
A senior, Labbe said she plans to focus on American studies and history in college and may not be able to do a lot of theater, especially if nontheater majors are not allowed to do shows. Either way, Labbe, who played Dorothy in a recent performance of “The Wizard of Oz,” is glad to have had the theater experience in Waterville.
“It’s been a good run,” she said.
OTHERS GET READY
Lawrence High School’s drama festival entry, “Excerpts from the Laramie Project,” is based on the 1998 killing of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming. He had been tied to a fence and beaten. Like Giguere, Lawrence drama director Kailey Smith also cut the full-length play down to a one-act — not an easy task.
The cast and crew embraced the message of the play and worked hard to get to the regionals, and now, the states, according to Smith. She said the cast became connected to the play. During their performance at the regionals, Smith was sitting in the audience, noticing that the pacing was off and she was trying to figure out why.
“Half the cast was crying,” she said. “To keep their composure, they had larger pauses between lines. Clearly, they are feeling this material.”
Competing this weekend from Lawrence will be 20 actors and 13 crew members. A lot of the students see their participation in the one-act play contest as a highlight of their high school theater experience, she said.
“It is a competition, but we try to keep a lot of the festival quality about it, try to keep it fun and limit the stress of competition.”
Winslow’s “Tribunal” is about a group of honor students who try to take back their school and they do it by trying to intimidate the bullies. The play explores whether violence is ever justified, according to drama director Jenn McCowan.
“Do the ends justify the means?” McCowan says. “The play is heavy-hitting.”
Like Waterville and Lawrence, Winslow has a large group — 34 cast and crew members — heading to the states this weekend. Unlike the Waterville and Lawrence plays, “Tribunal” was written as a one-act play.
The play was cast the week before Christmas break and the students have worked hard and well together, according to McCowan.
“The kids have done an amazing job,” she said. “It’s one of those situations where we don’t have a weak link.”
MCI’s play, “These Shining Lives,” is based on a true story about four women who work in a watch factory in Illinois in the 1920s. They face danger and suffer illness, without concern from company officials. Drama coach Debra Susi said it is a powerful, well-written show. It also was a full-length play that Susi cut it down to a one-act.
“It’s a compelling story, especially if you want to follow the story line all the way through,” she said.
The cast and crew of 35 are looking forward not only to performing at the state’s, but also to watching the other performances, according to Susi.
“I think we’re all excited to go see great theater, great story,” Susi said. “I’m just thrilled with the number of schools participating in and celebrating arts.”
Amy Calder — 861-9247
Twitter: @AmyCalder17
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