MHS Play Production Prepares for Massachusetts Educational Theater Festival

In the upcoming months, the students of Play Pro will be competing in a theater competition which is held through an organization called the Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild, Inc (METG).

Festival is a 40 minute competition at a series of sites. Throughout the competition there are three rounds, in each round a number schools advance to the next round and in the final round there will be 14 schools and they will perform in Boston.

The Festival approaching so quickly everyone nerves are beginning to stir. “[It is] always a little bit scary, especially because [they] write [their] show,” says theater director Sean Walsh. Yet through it all, the students in Play Pro are still excited for the show. “[She is] excited because of the group of people [they] have. All of [their] actors are very talented, and [she is] ready to see what [they] come up with after [they] write [their] show” said Jenna Vanella.

Unlike some of the other schools that compete in Fest, MHS creates their own show, currently they are working with themes. “[They] have moved toward[s] a neighborhood theme. So far [they] are just gathering [their] characters and gathering ideas for [their] neighborhood” said Gabriella Carli.

The students of MHS as well as the theater teacher, Sean Walsh and Jennifer Clapp, are also  working on creating a script for the show,setting, as well as working on building character that will be seen in the show. “Right now all [they] have is a potential setting, which is meant to be in a backyard of sorts” stated Vanella. Although not everything is planned yet Walsh stated “[they] have a good concept, but [they] still have a lot of work to do.”

The biggest struggle so far for the cast and teachers has been writing the script. “Writing is hard. It is difficult to settle on idea and make it into something that you are proud of showing off” says Dexter Haag. Another struggle that the cast has trouble with is “making sure that [they] are not over the 40 minute time limit.” says Carli.

The cast of Malden High School is however working through the struggles of script writing and focusing on their strengths. “Teamwork for both. [they] have a really unique way in which [they] work which allows for a lot of voices. Anything with this many people can always have room for better ways to compromise or work as a team, but [they] still do very well as is” says Haag.

The upcoming dates of the competitions coming in the following months are March 2nd (Preliminary Round), March 16th (Semi-Final Round), March 28th-30th (Final Round).