This year, like many other performance-oriented showcases, MCPS experienced the return of its amazing theater productions.
At Richard Montgomery High School, the students performed the play Blithe Spirit. In the words of sophomore Hadassah Ucko, the plot “revolves around a writer who decides to write a novel about a psychic. He decides to have a seance so that he knows what psychics are like, not expecting it to actually do anything. However, the seance works, and strange things start to happen.”
Ucko was in set construction, helping to build the set. “It was overall really fun,” she said, referring to her experience of being able to spend time with friends and learning how to use power tools. But she also noted that the physical labor which set construction required was difficult.
Senior Maria Wraback from Seneca Valley High School expressed similar sentiments. The school’s theater troupe, the Seneca Valley High School Birds of Play, put on the play Puffs: Or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic by Matt Cox.
The plot focuses on the forgotten Hufflepuff house—Cedric being the only pivotal character—through the eyes of the young orphan Wayne Hopkins. According to Wraback, he “is plagued by his need to be the hero and the best wizard but soon realizes that friendship and love are the most important kinds of magic in the world.”
Wraback played the lead role, Wayne Hopkins. She said it was difficult to facially express emotions through masks. However, she considered it a hurdle to overcome, rather than a setback. The cast had to learn how to use more body language to express what they typically would have shown on their faces.
“It was a challenge, but ultimately an exciting exploration into how important having a strong stage presence is to a production,” she said.
Both Ucko and Wraback expressed great joy at the return in in-person theater.
“I can describe performing in person again as akin to coming into a house with a crackling fire in the fireplace and the smell of freshly-baked cookies after playing in the snow,” Wraback said.
“It felt really great. There’s really no great online equivalent to performing in person,” Ucko said.
Great job to all the cast and crew that helped put on amazing shows this year!
Article by Akshya Mahadevan of Richard Montgomery High School
Photo by Ella Koenig of Richard Montgomery High School