Spring play tradition continues at St. Gregory’s
By JESSICA ALLEN Staff writer
Marcello Brownsberger, holding Ethan Elston, and Addison Hall rehearse a scene Tuesday afternoon for the annual eighth grade spring play at St. Gregory’s School. This is teacher Jenni Halley’s first year directing the performance.
According to St. Gregory’s School teacher Jenni Halley, her students’ “creative gates are wide open.”
The eighth grade class will present its annual spring play Thursday and Friday at 9 a.m. and Thursday at 7 p.m. in the school’s gymnasium.
This year’s play, “Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder?,” is a comedy centered on a boarding house in Alaska during the Klondike Gold Stampede.
Characters include a tax collector, a trapper, an aging entertainer, a judge, and a member of the Polar Bear Patrol, among others.
This will be Halley’s first year directing the play after the retirement of Diane Lade last year. Lade taught at St. Gregory’s for 34 years and began the tradition of the eighth grade play over 20 years ago.
Halley said she asked for Lade’s recommendation when deciding which play to produce. She chose “Who Threw the Overalls?” based on the size of this year’s class and the personality of the students.
This particular play has been done at St. Gregory’s before, and the class watched videos of previous performances for inspiration.
“Even though we watched the videos, I really encouraged them to put their own personality into it,” Halley said.
Her students did just that, preparing their own jokes and ad-libs and adding personal flair to their characters.
Halley said that while the script does provide some suggestion for costumes and props, it leaves quite a bit of room for student input to make the performance distinctive to this class.
Students were responsible for costumes, sets, props, and sound effects, meaning they had to get creative.
“We have a stash of stuff here, but a lot of the kids went to grandparents, friends, or Facebook to find what they needed,” Halley said. “We try to keep as much of it homemade as possible.”
Halley said her first year directing has been a learning experience and several challenges arose during the eight-week process.
For instance, one student who plays two different characters discovered she didn’t have enough time to change costumes between scenes.
“We had to slow the scenes down to give her time to change,” Halley said.
Also, because the class only has 11 students, two faculty members volunteered to step in. Juggling the schedules of the class with that of the faculty actors has proved tricky.
Most of the student actors have little experience with drama, but Halley said it has been exciting to watch them learn and grow throughout the process.
“I’ve enjoyed watching them progress,” she said. “The first few rehearsals it was so robotic and now it’s sassier and they use body language.”
“Sometimes kids figure out they can excel at something they didn’t think they were good at,” she added.
Halley hopes to see her students continue to pursue drama beyond their time at St. Gregory’s.
“We have students from the past that get some experience here and it’s not uncommon for us to see those kids in high school productions,” she said.
Students in the play this year are Marcello Brownsberger, Caitlyn Burke, Ethan Elston, Nic Garner, Laney Graham, Owen Graham, Addison Hall, Emily Long, Kenzie Martin, Molly Renshaw, and Sadie Schafer. Faculty cast members are Principal Susan Martin and seventh grade teacher Amy Gastler.
“Sometimes kids figure out they can excel at something they didn’t think they were good at,” Halley said.
By JESSICA ALLEN Staff writer
The cast of “Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder?” includes, front row from left, Sadie Schafer, Emily Long, Caitlyn Burke, Nic Garner, and Ethan Elston, and back row, Laney Graham, Marcello Brownsberger, Addison Hall, Owen Graham, Kenzie Martin, and Molly Renshaw. Not pictured are Principal Susan Martin and seventh grade teacher Amy Gastler.
By JESSICA ALLEN Staff writer
The cast of “Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder?” rehearses a fight scene in preparation for three performances on Thursday and Friday. The play is put on by eighth grade students in Jenni Halley’s class at St. Gregory’s School. Pictured from left to right are Emily Long, Laney Graham, Addison Hall, Marcello Brownsberger, and Owen Graham.
