Many exciting things are developing in the Theatre Arts Department. The school has been buzzing about the play “The Girls Who Glow,” and seniors are working on developing their one person shows.

“The Girls Who Glow” play was developed from a screenplay which was written by school alumni Virginia Mohler. She gave her screenplay to the Theatre Arts teacher Carol Cadby, and she and the Theatre fours worked on this screenplay to develop into a stage play. The process starts with workshopping, or taking the screenplay and assigning different groups of Theatre fours to a specific scene to make any cuts or to change parts around so that they fit the play’s statement, or focus better. The process of shortening the 86 page screenplay into a stage play was challenging, but it was a task that the Theatre fours were up for. A source of stress with the workshopping was how long it took to cut down the two hour screenplay into a 45 minute stage play, leaving limited time for the cast to actually rehearse for “The Girls Who Glow.” However, the Theatre fours are proud of the fact that they put the stage play together in time with enough to practice and portray the play to the audience in a way that they would understand their statement well.

“The fact that we cut it down from a really long screenplay to a 45 minute piece, and were able to have it… make sense to the audience. That’s a big accomplishment with the time that we had,” said senior Amy Butler.

“The Girls Who Glow” is about 1920’s teens who slowly get sick with radiation poisoning whilst working in a factory painting glow-in-the-dark watches.

The Theatre students connected realistically with their characters in “The Girls Who Glow” by accepting their character’s reality as their own.

“It’s finding the motivation behind everything and letting go of your prejudices,” said Clifton Kubiak.

Meanwhile, the Theatre fours are also researching for their one person shows. The one person shows are a college-level project for seniors. They choose a subject, and then write about an important event in their life from three points of view.

“The process of preparing for the one person show takes four years, because by that point everything they’re going to need, they’ve been introduced to,” Theatre Arts teacher Carol Cadby said.

The Theatre fours have not gotten very far into writing their one person shows, as it is still early in the year. However, they are already thinking about how they will present their subject to the audience.

“Pretty much everyone has an idea of what they are doing as their subject,” senior Mary Gay said.

Though one person shows can be nerve-wracking, senior Will Donahoe enjoys the solo aspect of the performance.

“I like the idea of being in complete control of my show, I wrote… all the words, I staged it, I’m responsible for everything in it,” Donahoe said.

The actor or actress must present their subject from the point of view of the subject, a third person and an elemental voice. These shows are the peak of Theatre students’ career in Theatre Arts.

“Stopping and realizing that you’re the Theatre fours now and you have to do what they did––is mind blowing,” said senior Aryn Geier.