Producers and directors, senior Katie Leis and junior Erin Amlicke, face a stressful challenge as they strive to mount a production Of "Alice in Wonderland" this winter.
“ MLK clearly hasn’t put much effort into the success of theater art programs or student plays,” said Amlicke. “Ideally, Katie and I really want it to be similar to Hume-Fogg’s theater where we have an MLK teacher who actually is a theater teacher who directs the plays and will have greater interest in theater and hopefully MLK can even invest in a real stage. The stage we have now is just horrible for theater.”
Through their work, Amlicke and Leis hope to spark interest in theater among the student body and ultimately establish a solid theater program at MLK.
Amlicke has always wanted to pursue a hobby in theater and was greatly disappointed as a new student at MLK, to discover the school had no reliable theater program. She then spent freshman and sophomore years auditioning for several plays hosted by Metro Arts in the Park such as The Jungle Book and Peter Pan.
This year however, the play Metro Arts, was hosting a play that did not particularly interest her. Determined to continue doing what she loved, Amlicke concluded that it would maybe be fun for MLK students to do a play themselves. She then decided to contact senior Katie Leis, who she knew to be an experienced theater performer.
“So I emailed Katie and told her that I thought it would be really cool if we directed a play at MLK, I mean even if it was really small, it’d be interesting to do it” said Amlicke.
Leis had been considering a similar idea and agreed to give it a shot. Over summer, they began meeting up at Fido’s and discussed possible plays as well as how they would organize auditions and rehearsals but had no idea what they were in for.
“We were thinking it’d only be like five people who’d actually want to do it,” said Amlicke,
Both Leis and Amlicke were surprised at the amount of attention the idea received from the student body. With all the excitement their idea of hosting a play aroused, pressure built for them to actually carry it out. They scheduled auditions in the auditorium during the whole first week of September for all high school students interested and announced final call backs on that Friday, September 15th.
“It’s actually really fun to teach what you know,” said Amlicke. “I’ve always been the student when it comes to theater so it’s interesting to tell [others] what my directors have all told me.”
A majority of the students who were cast have little to no experience in acting but Leis is excited about teaching inexperienced people and notes that she and Amlicke will make great directors because, “the best directors know what it’s like to be an actor.”
Rehearsals began Friday, September 18, with a few acting games that helped the cast with their acting skills. Rehearsals will be held twice during the week in Mrs. Mullane’s room after school and once during the weekend. On Friday September 25th, Amlicke and Leis happily announced that they would be directing the play Alice in Wonderland.
“It’s really fun but it’s hard because you have to schedule everybody in and its just a lot of work outside of the actual process of theater trying to get a day for rehearsal that will work for everybody and then everyone always has so many other extra curriculars that their doing since theater obviously isn’t their main goal at this moment in time. It’s kind of frustrating with that but I think it will work out in the end,” said Amlicke.
“I feel like there are a lot of people probably at MLK who like theater who haven’t gotten the opportunity to experience how great it can be and all the different benefits you have from being on stage so we wanted to give people opportunities,” said Leis.
Through her participation in local plays, Amlicke has established a close relations with the Cane Ridge High School theater director and often receives advice from her. Due to the poor condition of MLK’s stage, Amlicke, with the help of Cane Ridge’s theater teacher, has arranged for the final play to take place at Cane Ridge High School by early December.
The two devoted directors hope their production will spark interest for theater in students at MLK and encourage the administration to hire an MLK theater teacher who can direct plays and ultimately invest in a real theater.
“That’s what we’re hoping for. Though it probably won’t happen in our time here, I have a good feeling about this,” said Amlicke