December 19, 2019 8 rustlernews.com Performing arts department returns home from the South Pacific
Above: David Miller, Elli Bourgeois, Lydia Case, and Sofi Moore smile at the end of the final dress rehearsal on Dec. 3 Right: Kairi Lising and Blake Sowers, Act 2 Scene 2 Far Right: Seabees gathering around Shawn Keck in Act 1 Scene 3 Photos by Nancy Beston.
Oak Box incident Thespians try a comedic angle enachap had the shock of their for the 2020 convention
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lifetime when one of their famous places was invaded in an odd way. The Oak Box theatre in Menachap, California, had people pass out in the theater, everyone still breathing but not responding to anyone. Investigators are still on the scene, trying to figure out who caused everyone to go into a deep sleep. There is one person still awake and the investigators took them in for questioning. No names have been released yet and no one knows exactly what happened. We will inform everyone once we get more information as to what happened at the Oak Box “I can’t share the secret, but it’s going to be different,” Chris Evans said. He’s looking forward to seeing the audience’s reaction to the play by Stephen Gregg and for them to have lots of fun watching this. Trap is going to be an interesting play to put together. Evans is letting the stagecraft crew and the drama kids see what they can come up with, letting everyone’s creative minds work so he can see what they come up with to be perfomed Mar. 26-28.
This year, the show for the Thespian Festival is a “peek into the subconscious” of CMR’s drama and stagecraft teacher. “On The Roof ” is written by Chris Evans, and it’s about a drama teacher who ends up going crazy and climbs onto the roof of the school. This is the show he decided to write and take to Missoula in February. Sophomore Savanna Solano plans on being at the auditions on Dec 18. “Mr. Evans wrote it, and I want to [be in it],” Solano said. “[It will] be a lot calmer [at auditions].” She said she is extremely excited for it, wanting to see what the outcome ends up being with the group of Thespians who get to be a part of the play. Like Solano, sophomore Kairi Lising is going to be trying out for this show. “[I] look forward to everything,” she said. “[We’ll be] seeing the shows from a different perspective [compared to what we see in our own department].” Lising said she knows this is going to be something CMR Drama has never done before. Unlike Lising and Solano, senior Alex Ayres is not going to be in the show this year, but is still going to be enjoying the trip with the honor society to the Festival. “[I’m just] looking forward to one last trip with my Thespian friends,” he said. “I’m excited for a fun, memorable experience with friends and the student body. This is going to be the first year CMR has ever decided on a comedy to bring to Missoula in Feb. 7-8. Evans decided to change things up a little bit, and not do something so deep. “In this show, I’m poking fun at you guys, myself, and the school,” Evans told his theatre students after they finished reading through it. Evans wanted to see how absurd he could go with this play, just letting the playwright side of him taking over as he sat down and wrote.
by Shana Fronsee and David Case, staff writers C. M. Russell’s Performing Arts department returns home from the journey of a lifetime the night of Dec. 14, as they conclude their second and final weekend performing a classic musical. “South Pacific” is about a nurse who falls for a French planter on an island in the South Pacific Ocean during World War II. Alongside that romance, there’s a lieutenant who slowly falls for a Polonesian woman, even though there wasn’t a lot of acceptance for falling in love with someone who is of a different race. According to sophomore Kairi Lising, the performance went really well. “First night was the best, especially with the group we have,” Lising said. She did choreography for the musical and didn’t really expect a yes when she approached drama teacher and director Chris Evans and asked if she could create the dances for the show. “[I love seeing the actors] do [the dances] I worked so hard on,” she said. Her process was imagining the number and doing the dance, and then preparing to teach the other actors. Like Lising, junior Kaitlyn Bratten thought everyone in the show, including herself, did an amazing job. “[We] put our all into it, and no matter what the character is, it’s important to the show,” Bratten said.
She thought Rodgers and Hammerstein did an amazing job writing the music and lyrics, and she was glad the actors were able to bring another classic story to life. Her favorite part was Lising’s choreography and being able to learn it, as it was “so much fun to learn.” “South Pacific” is the second annual musical the performing arts department has done in two years. Last year, students performed in “The Sound of Music.” Director/drama teacher Chris Evans and orchestra teacher/musical director Steve Olson said that they plan on doing a musical every year. Olson said he thinks it’s a great experience for the students. The shows in the last two years have featured a full orchestra, numbers ranging between 20 and 30 people. “[It was a] hard show to put together,” he said. Producing shows is a lot of work, stress levels almost through the roof. The best part about putting on this kind of show, however, is to see what everyone can do. “I think it’s our duty to [give the kids the experiences to be in one],” Olson said. “[I] get the best seat in the house and get to see everyone grow.” The CMR Performing Arts Department used to only do one musical every other year, not giving as many students opportunities to be in a musical during high school. However it seems that is going to change.
Writing Your Own Play
When it comes to writing a play, there is one teacher who will give you any tips and advice on what to do so your piece is worth publishing. Drama and stagecraft teacher Chris Evans has been writing since he was in high school, enjoying the career on top of being a teacher. He has written three plays, including the play he is writing for the Thespian show. He wrote “American Roulette” back in 1999 after getting inspired by a school shooting. “My cause is school safety,” Evans said. He has another play about the danger of school shootings and that’s “Clowns With Guns (A Vaudeville)”, which was published in 2015. He’s hoping he can get “On The Roof ” published too since he never got “American Roulette” published after he wrote it. His plays, all three of them, are only one act plays, even though most plays that are written are usually two acts or more so there was an intermission in between. They were all performed for Thespian shows, “American Roulette” being the only production to be shown to the public on the stage in Bill Williamson Auditorium. He used Montana Colony, which is a summer program the Missoula Repertory Theatre hosts for anyone intrested in playwright, to help with his writing style because “it taught me how to write.” One thing he wouldn’t tell anyone, unless he gets asked about it, is he has many unwritten plays sitting in a drawer at home. He didn’t elaborate if he was going to finish them or not, letting them sit there at home waiting to be finished or scrapped. If anyone needs inspiration to write or just wants to know where to start if they’re new to writing, Evans is available in room 603.
