With the spring festival coming up, the Play Production team from Malden High School is preparing their own original play to perform! Although it has taken a few weeks to finalize a script, the class has come together in groups to perfect a play for the ages.
While Senior Yasmine Alayan wrote the base script, everyone else divided into groups. Some people would handle exposition while others would handle characters. Another would handle the climax and development.
The idea of students creating their own play was inspired by Play Production's past advisor Sean Walsh. The length of the play will be less than 40 minutes in order to meet the time requirement of the spring festival.
Advisor of Play Production, Leanne DeRosa, started the production with some improvisation to get the students in the right frame of mind. Thier goal was to come up with a script that has complex characters and a story. Next, everyone came up with ideas and a rough outline for a script. As stated, Alayan’s play was almost immediately accepted as the best play for the festival and the class started to expand on it from there.
“When we wrote the play two years ago, it was really serious and had to do with school shootings as a student. It was really intense,” DeRosa stated. “And the show this year without giving anything away definitely has some heavy themes.…But it has a lot of themes about self-love and self-worth. The way that students have chosen to present it is pretty funny and light-hearted.”
Sophomore Matthew Goroshko added that he is "really excited for this script because it's a very unusual process for me. I've never been part of writing a show before. This script and everything we're doing is so new, but it's also so interesting and the script sounds so awesome. I love it!”
When asked about how DeRosa split up the class during the planning, Senior Yusra Tafraoui said that they split up the different sections of the plot, and then wrote the main idea of what they wanted as they expanded from there. She thought that "everyone got pretty much equal say in what they wanted to do.” Play Production had two teams, either craft or setting versus writing and editing. "I picked the editing team because I really wanted it. I really like to be involved in the writing process... but also being backstage and doing all that stuff is very fun.”
Sophomore Brian Vences said that he feels like a valued part of the Play Production team. “We probably trust the say of the seniors and the juniors more, but I feel like [everyone’s say] is equally valued in the writing process,” Vences said.
Senior Imani Ligon-Chambers reminisced that the upcoming script defied her expectations. “This one, it's like a very touching play, where even though it has some comedy, it still brings out real-life issues,” Ligon-Chambers said. “And that's not something that you see with most musicals.”
With the spring show set to premiere around March 20th, the students of Play Production wanted to encourage people to join and support them throughout the year. Vences pointed out that anyone can be a part of Play Production regardless of their previous experiences or interests. “We have things for everybody, even if you don't want to be an actor or anything like that,” Vences said.
Goroshko also added that the friends you make in Play Production make it a worthwhile experience. “It’s amazing,” Goroshko said. “I think [anyone would] be a great fit.”
You can support Malden High School’s Play Production class throughout the year by going to their shows and seeing the work and effort they have put into the productions, and be sure to look forward to their original production in the Spring!
