Fall play season: that time of the year where students in the theatre program look forward to auditions and tech tryouts for the play. It’s a time where you meet new people, see old faces, and make new friends. This year at Middle Creek High School, the fall play will be The Election. I interviewed Mrs. Garrett, Middle Creek’s theatre teacher and director for the shows, to ask about the show and the casting process.
The Election is a comedy set in a high school and is about a special election for the replacement of the former study body president. There are two main characters in the play. There’s Mark, your typical student who isn't very passionate about running for student body president, and then there’s Christy - who is the cliche nerd. She wants the school to have healthier food in the cafeteria, increase homework, and get rid of the football team. “Then suddenly Christy comes out with this campaign ad, she’s had a total makeover and she’s speaking with political ease…” Mrs. Garrett explained. This is when the real fun starts. There are other characters like Karl, who is Mark’s best friend and campaign manager, and Gary, who offers Mark funding for his campaign ads. “It’s a really fun, silly piece,” said Mrs. Garrett. “We get to see debates and so we have a debate moderator and we get to see political commentary on the debates and there’s all sorts of campaign ad silliness and just lots of ridiculousness with a little bit of a message.”
Obviously, before you can put on a show you have to have actors and to get actors, you have to cast them. Casting is when the director (or casting director) decides who will play each role. The directors usually hold auditions to see the actors’ skills and potential. Even though casting is really important, some directors tend to not enjoy it. “I hate it, it's the worst!” Mrs. Garrett said. “I hate casting. I hate it with a burning and fiery passion.” She then went on to explain how she runs auditions. She first holds auditions that everyone can go to and then she has callbacks. Callbacks are when the director calls specific people to come to a second audition so they can reread some scenes or try out different things. “So I look at that list of people (from auditions) and go ‘who do I feel like I didn’t really see their full potential’ or ‘who do I feel like I want to see them do something different than what they did at auditions,’” Mrs. Garrett said. She also compared casting to a puzzle piece. “So sometimes you have one puzzle piece that will fit in three different places… but they might be the only person who will fit this one role... because there may be two other people who can fit into the other two roles.”
Mrs. Garrett wanted to give as many opportunities this year as possible so she double-casted the whole play. Double-casting means that there are two people playing each role, but each cast performs on a separate day. Because of this, The Election will be performed on two days: the 21st and 22nd of October.
If you missed auditions or going onstage and acting isn’t your thing, there are also tech forms coming out soon! You can either be on the deck crew (moving scenery), lighting crew, spotlight, sound crew, or costume crew. Being on tech is a really fun way to get involved in the theatre program at Middle Creek, and it also requires fewer rehearsals so if you're on a tight schedule, tech might just be the thing for you. The Google forms for that should be out soon so be on the lookout for those!
Ticket information is not out yet, but I hope many people will come out to see this funny, lighthearted, and entertaining show!
Comments