聽The Arcola School鈥檚 Sr. Drama group presented 鈥淕ossip鈥� by Brian Hampton and produced by special arrangement with Pioneer Drama Service Inc., on Tuesday, March 24, to the community at the MacMurray Theatre in preparation for their efforts at the Regional Drama Festival hosted in Moosomin, March 26-28.
At the Regional Drama Fest the cast and crew received recognitions for their efforts. Drew Fleck earned an Unsung Hero Award. Taylor Hengen, Walker Hengen, and Drew Fleck also all received backstage technical certificates, while Keegan Heidinger received a Mary Ellen Burgess award.
The students have been working since January on the production and have spent many hours refining lines, hitting lighting and sound cues, and presenting the performance the way they want to; but, they have also spent time preparing how to set up and tear down the set quickly as they will be timed at Festival.
Arcola鈥檚 choice of play touches on how gossip is started and how it spreads. Ultimately it focuses on how gossip is toxic and the ways people can choose to be affected by it or choose to reject it.
The play sees the charming, but manipulative, Gossip (Cassie Eaton) arriving at a new school where she befriends a group of drama students. Deciding she likes Tim (Riley James) Gossip befriends his girlfriend Dallas (Emilie Craig).
At first Gossip is really nice to Dallas, but slowly she begins to sabotage Dallas鈥� relationships by conniving and twisting truths. This includes twins, Kaine (Shaleen Hengen) and Candy (Marcedes Singleton), who often speak in unison. After being baited into a conversation about the twins Dallas admits to Gossip that speaking in unison is odd, which Gossip relays to the twins as Dallas finding them annoying.
Gossip proceeds to split Tim and Dallas up by planting the seed in Tim鈥檚 mind that Dallas has feelings for and eventually cheated on him with Andy (Keegan Heidinger), Tim鈥檚 best friend.
Gossip鈥檚 rumours and lies spread, she becomes popular and begins to get everything she wanted as Dallas becomes the 鈥渂ad guy鈥� in the eyes of the student body that is until Andy encourages Tim to look into the truth. Tim discovers everything from his and Dallas鈥� relationship to Kaine and Candy beginning to hate each other all originated with Gossip and confronts her. People turn their backs on Gossip as they discover the truth and are thereby freed from the toxicity of the perpetuating lies.
They shun her and later discover, after nearly forgetting about her altogether, that she has died. Andy is the only one to go to the funeral, but when he arrives he is told, in a twist, that there is no funeral for Gossip. He leaves perplexed as Gossip returns to the stage introducing herself at a new school, foreshadowing how the vicious circle is about to be repeated.
Other cast includes Brittany Delong, Kayla McLaren, Chalis Harambura, and Dawson Cutler as classmates, while Harambura also acts as the funeral director.
The student director and stage manager was Drew Fleck, lights and sound was done by Walker Hengen, set and costume design was Taylor Hengen, and the prompter was Dacey Fleck.
The students did a fantastic job on-stage bringing to life the very serious issue of gossiping and how it can affect peopleThe performance focused on the far-reaching repercussions of Gossip and how her lies pervaded through the school. To physically show this the production dressed Gossip all in red and as she began to tell lies and pull people into her stories they acquired red items. From a red purse to a hat, they subtly and then slowly but very obviously began wearing more red symbolizing the reach Gossip had developed.
Teacher director, Whitney Paul, was very pleased with how the production has come together this year.
鈥淎s a director, I am always very nervous when it comes to our school performance for drama. It is the final moment where I know that I have done all that I can do as a director, and they are in control of the rest. This year I had Drew Fleck as our student director, and I could not have done it without her. She showed great dedication to our group, and a lot of the success that we felt yesterday was due to her organization and leadership.鈥�
鈥淲e鈥檝e been working on this since January to make sure it鈥檚 ready for competition,鈥� Paul explained.
Additionally she said that half of the cast and crew graduates this year, so it has been a good send off for them in their final year, the majority of the grade 12s having been in drama throughout their year鈥檚 in school.
鈥淎 lot of these students have been with me since Junior Drama, so it has been great to see them grow into the actors they are today,鈥� Paul explained. 鈥淭his year I have 7 cast members graduating; Drew Fleck, Cassie Eaton, Emilie Craig, Walker Hengen, Taylor Hengen, Chalis Harambura, and Riley James. I will be sad to see them go, but this show has been a testament to the work that they are capable of doing and the amount of fun we have had along the way.鈥�
