It’s 2:30 PM, right after a long day of school. The auditorium lights turn on and voices echo across the stage, while friends playfully rehearse their lines.
When you walk into the auditorium during this time, you will see students jumping on set pieces, passionately running their lines, laughing through missed cues, and pouring all their energy and time into this show.
Play Production has been spending the last two months preparing for their upcoming show that they will be competing with for the Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild (METG) High School Drama Festival, Sometimes the Rain, Sometimes the Sea written by Julia Izumi. Two home shows had been scheduled to take place in the Malden High School Jenkins Auditorium from on Thursday, February 26th at 5 and 7 PM, but have since been cancelled due to weather conditions.
Sometimes the Rain, Sometimes the Sea is a whimsical retelling of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid where a personified Rain Cloud embarks on a journey to discover her self-identity after falling in love with a human, Ralmond. Her story is narrated by Dolan, a character representing Anderson himself, and throughout the play, the story gets interrupted by unrequited lovers from Anderson’s past entering the narrative.
According to Ariana Messana, the director and teacher of the class, this show has a double cast, which consists of cast A and cast B. “That way, we’re prepared with understudies, and we give some underclassmen the chance to practice under a mentor,” she explained, “This show is actually a competition show, Play Pro competes in the METG competition. So having two casts means that we have understudies prepped and ready to go into the competition, if needed.”
Outside of their class time every other day, 3:00 PM is when rehearsal often officially starts when practicing during after school hours. Some days, students who are able to stay as late as 5 or 6 PM for rehearsals outside of their mandatory tech week, the week of the competition.
“I think people don’t realize how much work Play Pro is. They see a pretty set, cool lights, and actors on stage, but they don’t realize all the hours and hours of work it takes for both me, as the director, and for every student to get through the show,” Messana expressed.
Getting used to playing your character’s role can either be challenging depending on the character and on the actor playing it. Costumes Lead Grayson Herrera is playing Bessie, who is “a cow, and also a seawitch, a lover, and anything you want them to be.”
Herrera stated, “It didn’t take me that long to feel comfortable acting as my character, because I was really excited and had a lot of fun.”
Besides the fun that comes with this role, Herrera shared how the only difficult aspect is, “still having to convey an entire paragraph of emotion behind one ‘moo.’”
In contrast to Herrera, Kenny Wong, who plays Ralmond, took slightly longer to be able to interpret and fully step into his character. “It took me about two weeks to get comfortable in my role, as I read through the script and tried to figure out what the play is about because figuring out your character can be confusing at first, but it began to feel more natural after that two-week mark.
It is tradition to have the current Assistant Stage Manager stage manage the METG show to gain experience before stepping into the role as Stage Manager the following year. Assistant Stage Manager Kyla Farrow shared how she had closely watched Stage Manager Leica Naceus directing during this year’s musical while mentally preparing herself to take over for the next production. “I would say the hardest part of preparing was coordinating all of the different tech and actor elements, so it all comes cohesively together. But we all have great communication skills, so that definitely made it easier for me,” she described.
Whether it’s coordinating all these elements together like Farrow, or performing in front of an audience, stage fright is common, no matter how experienced the individual. Messana makes it a point to spend a lot of time building her students’ confidence.
“I think the beauty of this show is that because often underclassmen are paired with an upperclassman partner, they don’t just have me to rely on, they have a classmate who has been in this program for a while, to help them practice,” Messana mentioned, “But ultimately, we spend a lot of time in the beginning of the show building our characters, playing improvisational games, and really understanding who their character is, with the hope that by the end of the show, everyone is feeling super confident in their own skin and playing the character.”
“You must totally become the character that you are playing. That character that you are playing would not have stage fright because they are a part of the story and telling the story,” Farrow added.
“You don’t have to be good at what you do, you just have to want to be good,” Herrera stated.
Due to snow days and the different schedules during access testing, rehearsing has become a whirlwind for everyone, causing Play Pro to have to make up for missed time with more after-school hours. But in the end, everyone ultimately agreed that they were really happy with how the show turned out. “Having a team that operates really well together and trusts each other is the only way that you’re able to get a show done,” Messana stated.
With all their preparation, the production team has been cautious about what they are sharing and do not want to give away too much about the show yet. But during their practices, one specific scene has proven to be especially difficult to contain to themselves. What the students have been referring to as “the magical girl transformation,” in secret, includes “some really interesting lighting and sound effects that have to be timed perfectly to get the effect across.” According to Messana, they have had a hard time timing this specific transformation, “but it has been very rewarding.”
If you are interested in seeing this secret transformation, as well as all the hard work the Play Pro team has put into this show, make sure you stay up to date with their Instagram account @mhsplaypro for future home showings or support them at METG Fest hosted by Wellesley High School on February 28th.
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