The theater program is preparing for their one act production called Lockdown. It is directed by the student Oliver Spencer.
“It’s about a group of students who are thrown into a lockdown in their classroom, and throughout the play they’re battling, not only with each other, but themselves, and also with the fact that they don’t know if the lockdown is real,” Oliver Spencer, a health senior said.
This production also explores this theme in a more serious and dramatic fashion, to tackle an issue plaguing today’s society.
“It’s something that sheds light on a situation that is so frequent in today’s time with school lockdowns and things going on, especially in the education world,” Spencer said.
Many other versions of this production have used a lighter tone and even comedic tone for their productions. The theater program has decided to take a more serious approach to this production.
“Well you want to stand out and you want to do something that now everybody else is doing. So that’s pretty much what theater is about is to be a trendsetter” Mark VanSavage the theater director said.
This is also going to be the production they are taking to the Kansas Thespian Festival this January. This will be the fourth year the theater program has submitted a production to KTF.
“Starting next month we’ll start preparing, and we get to go, the first week of January. We’d go and we take these and complete as well as we get to learn that we go to different workshops from Broadway professionals, people who have been in the industry for a long time and get to learn all kinds of different things from different sides of the stage, different sides of producing a show,” Spencer said.
Auditions took place last week and the cast size is small.
“It’s a small cast and the more experience the better, and it seemed really exciting to be a part of something like that,” Georgiana Lozano, a public service sophomore said.
The process has started and the production is underway.
“I am very excited for this production and I can’t wait to see what Oliver has planned,” Lozano said.
Vansavage encourages participation from everyone.
“I encourage everybody and anybody to come audition, even if you’re nervous and afraid and you don’t know what you are doing because, I am really going to hone a supportive respectful atmosphere because you have to have that”
For some, this is their first year going to KTF
“I’m excited for KTF, I honestly have never gone but I’ve heard that it’s very exciting and it’s very fun,” Lozano said.
