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Northridge High School • 2901 Northridge Road • Tuscaloosa, Al• 35406
May 5, 2014 • Volume 11 • Issue 8
Production casts a magical spell Sumona Gupta Entertainment Editor
Photos By: Rebecca Griesbach
Break a leg: Ben Wright and Anna Beth Northington, juniors, Margaret Crowe, sophomore, Caroline First, junior, and Maggie Butler, sophomore, act out their parts in the musical theater’s production of Cinderella on April 25 in the auditorium. Wright and Northington played Prince Charming and Cinderella, Crowe and First were the stepsisters, and Butler was the Fairy Godmother.
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One day before their show, theater production and musical theater students busily readied for their final dress rehearsal. As some added final touches to props and decorations, others worked on costumes and applied stage makeup. The drama and musical theater departments collaborated to put on their musical Cinderella. A few stragglers remained in drama teacher Donna Wright’s classroom three weeks before the show. Projects in mid-creation were strewn across clusters of desks with students working diligently alongside them. “Working hard or hardly working?” Sophie Fairbairn, senior, jokingly asked Mary Margaret Hand, senior. Occupying herself with gluing a piece of fabric, Hand worked not only on a scroll for the play but also on a dead goat. “It took about two weeks [to make the goat],” she said, “I started from scratch.” Billy Luu, junior, had three tasks: a pheasant, pork and a goat. “Right now I’m carving the bodies,” Luu said. “It’s hard because sometimes we have to make changes to them and recarve the whole thing.” Dooley McCutchen, set constructor, sat in a folding seat in the auditorium adjacent to the classroom with paint-stained hands. “I worked with Mrs. Wright at Central [High School]. My daughter was in her drama class. I got an emergency call from her to help with the set,” he said.
McCutchen said the true “magic of theater” lies in careful planning. Sometimes, challenging scenes require completely rearranging the stage and props just before the curtain parts again. “People behind the scenes work just as hard as the actors,” he said. Junior Anna Beth Northington, who plays Cinderella, and Donna Wright, drama teacher, rehearsed in a make-shift dressing room across the hall. They were “blocking” or staging, a scene. Much like Cinderella, many of the performers designed and made their ball gowns themselves. Sophomore Margaret Crowe played Portia, one of Cinderella’s stepsisters. Crowe said she taught herself how to add the trimmings to her costume. “Ms. Wright gave me a needle and thread and said, ‘Make your dress,’” Crowe said. “I added a hem, roses and fabric to the bust to make it poofy.” The students have prepared for the play since December, when they were cast in their roles. They learned their lines and musical numbers over the break. Sophomore Maggie Butler, who played the Fairy Godmother, said she used references as a source of inspiration. “I looked on YouTube a lot,” she said. “YouTube was my best friend for the show for ideas, timing the songs and motions.” In the week leading up to the play, the cast and crew worked for long hours, staying long after school ended. “Rehearsals last a long time. Some of us don’t leave until 11:20 at night,” Crowe said.
Junior, DeMario Plott, plays the king. He said that around the set, he was known as “Iron Man,” because he did all of the ironing. He was responsible for acquiring parts of his costume, a memorable experience for him. “I had to go get funny boxers. All these people saw me buy Ninja Turtle boxers for my first scene.” he said. In the sound booth, Beth McGuire, musical theater teacher, was testing the actors’ and actresses’ microphones. She said that she’s proud of the work the musical theater and theater production students have done together. “Things like making props together and dancing, they taught them how to work with different types of people,” she said. Sally Ozment, sophomore, served as a costume designer and manager. For her role as one of the stagecoach mice on Saturday evening, she may have taken the stage saying “break a leg,” too literally. “I was running backstage to get to my cue and I fell in a hole and broke my ankle,” she said. Despite this, Ozment felt that the play went well. “The first night, we had a couple of technical difficulties, but I heard the second night was good - I had to leave during the intermission.” Plott said that the play was a learning experience, as well as a team effort. “I’m not an actor; I’m a singer. But I get to work with amazing people. They know how to have fun but know how to get things done.”
Possible connection between absences, new exemption policy Renu Pandit Editor-in-Chief
The exemption policy, which was preciously strictly attendance based with a C average minimum, changed this year so that a student with a C average, even with no absences, would be unable to exempt an exam. Dr. Isaac Espy, principal, said there is probably some correlation between the exemption policy change and student attendance this year, “but there are way more important factors that influence student attendance.” “Our worst attendance problems, for example, would not improve or get worse with an exemption policy. Students who are candidates for exemptions, for the most part, have good attendance records,” he said. He said that despite the change in the exemption policy, “the attendance rate is slightly higher this year than the previous
five or so years.” “Most students make every effort to come to school. This seems to be the case this year, coincidentally, since we have turned up the pressure with Early Warning referrals. This means Juvenile Court,” he said. He said the school “mails out mean letters when a student accumulates five absences.” “Then, we get down to business after we have put together a plan to improve a student’s attendance and the absences continue. The worst thing is Early Warning—that is Juvenile Court. We have no control over the judge’s decision. Sometimes that decision involves punishment for parents,” he said. Rabisa Khan, junior, said she has Office Assistant first period, and one of their responsibilities is to assist students who are checking in. “Usually after first period we’ve used an
entire form for check-ins, and each form has around 50 names on it,” she said. She said last year many people used the exemption policy as an incentive for being on time. “People knew they couldn’t exempt exams if they exceeded a certain number of absences and tardies,” she said. “Which is pretty much why I was always on time.” “This year though, people know they just have to keep their grades up since absences play no role in exemptions,” she said. “I would think that to be a valid reason for why there are so many absences.” Parker Evans, senior, said he thinks the new exemption policy inadvertently encourages absences since there is no longer any real incentive to be in class. “Since exemptions are only given to seniors, underclassmen have no reason to go to class like they used to. Back in my day, we worked hard for our exemptions, but nowadays, kids don’t appreciate them
Movies Page 4
because they don’t have them anymore. Seniors take them for granted because all we have to do is show up on the right days to take tests and make sure we get an A,” he said. Espy stressed the importance of being at school on time. “As a general rule, most people have a difficult time learning what the teacher is teaching that day if they are not in class,” he said. “Some people learn by not being there if they have profound powers of osmosis, or telepathic projection, to name a few. My experience has led me to conclude that those people are the exception rather than the rule.” “Just get up, shower, get dressed and come to school. You will learn more, have better grades, stay out of court and be happier,” he said. “You will have all of those things going for you. Which is nice.”
See the editorial on page 2
Principal Selection Page 8
Soccer Page 7