Saratoga News

Photograph by Robert Scheer

Saratoga High School students get last-minute instructions before going on stage in "Broadway."

Saratoga High students take to the stage in a 1920s drama

By Cecily Barnes

Over the weekend, 29 Saratoga High School students outfitted in 1920s garb basked in the spotlight as they performed Broadway, a play that's monopolized every second of their after-school time for weeks. After hours of set design, costume design, lighting, music, rehearsing and line-memorization, a slice of the 1920s was created in SHS's Little Theater.

Before show time, the nervous group of actors padded around the gymnasium, scrambling to complete hair and makeup. Minutes before curtain call, assistant director Anne Gilbert, 17, instructed the actors to gather in a circle around her and stretch. In a frenzy of flapper dresses, stockings with seams, and suspenders, the group pulled together and joined director Danielle Igra, who teaches drama and English at SHS.

"OK," Igra told the group. "Close your eyes, and roll your shoulders. Stop when you find a position that your character's shoulders would be in. Shake your arms until they are in a position your character's arms would be in."

And on through every limb of the body, Igra assisted the actors in transforming from SHS students into their Broadway characters. After a few vocal warm-ups, like "She sells sea shells by the sea shore," the excited, energized, and still nervous group went backstage with a sendoff from Ingra.

"I give you each permission to do one thing, and one thing only wrong tonight. Think of it now, figure out what that one thing is," said Igra, who verbalized this permission out of a Murphy's Law superstition that the evening couldn't possibly proceed with no mistakes.

Students who participated in Broadway did so for a number of reasons. For the tech crew, the long afternoons paid off in the form of school credit. Some of the actors planning for the future had already reserved Broadway a slot on their résumé. And many of the students participated just for fun.

"I want to go into theater doing technical lighting, set design and sound," said 17-year-old Kelly Sheeman. "I read [the play] and drew the set up to scale."

Kim Wachter, 17, and Meagan Duncan, 17, took on the task of outfitting the cast with era-appropriate clothing.

" I think we made about 35 costumes," said Wachter who's always liked fashion design but doesn't think she'll do it for a living.

Set in the 1920s, the play centers around Billy, played by 16-year-old Mandy Manousos. Billy is a naive dancer who wants to make it big and is torn between the affections of two men, one good and one bad. Who does she choose in the end? You'll just have to see the play to find out.

Broadway will be performed at 8 p.m. this Friday and Saturday at SHS's Little Theater.