The theater department hosted their theater and improv showcase on Tuesday in the cafeteria. Students from theater one, theatrics and tech theater demonstrated their skills learned throughout the semester and had the audience laughing from beginning to end.
Theater adviser Kimberly Segura explained how the preparation for the show varied from setting up lights to monitoring the show’s production. Following this Segura explained how the first half of the show consisted of theater one’s performance,“That’s Not How I Remember It,” detailing the theme.
“The theater one show revolves around the 80’s and basically it’s a story of a mom and dad that have two different versions of how they met in highschool. The dads version is sort of a karate kid plot and the mom was more of 16 candles,” said Segura.
With this being their second show of the year, theater students applied what they learned from their previous show, “Barbie vs Oppenheimer.” After weeks of preparation, they were dedicated to putting on the best show for the audience.
“Every single day during class we would just rehearse and rehearse, some members even stayed after school to rehearse in the cafeteria,” said junior Marley Herrera.
Herrera was one of the lead actors playing as Lola, the young version of the mother, in the theater one showcase alongside senior Matthew Troncoso who played Barry, the young version of the father.
The second half of the showcase consisted of the improv section hosted by theatrics. Five teams went head to head to gain the audience’s favor and be named the night’s winners.
Alongside multiple games hosted by Segura throughout the show “Die, Die, Die” was an audience favorite due to the audience interaction it allowed, continuously asking the emcees to go in the crowd and pick a random person to ask a question.
Questions such as, “give me a second cousins name, first pets name, number one thing on your christmas list” were asked to the audience in order for the teams to have a topic to improv about.
With the show being student run, each student had their own tasks and responsibilities. Without the involvement of students, this show wouldn’t have turned out the way it did.
Junior Alex Negrete is a part of both theatrics and tech theater and participated in both roles.
“I handled both off stage and on stage, I programmed some of the lighting. I can’t take full credit for that but I did my fairshare, after that I made sure to work on my scene … and for improv, you know I just improved I just went about it, it’s one of those things you can’t really prepare its just what comes up,” said Negrete.
The showcase allowed students to step out of their comfort zones to try out new things. Senior Sophia Gonzalez, a former theatrics student who played the role of Deena in last year’s theater production “Almost Maine”, took on a completely different role as one of the night’s two emcees.
“I’m really proud of theater one for their first ever showcase, they did amazing. I’m really proud of theatrics because we’ve come a long way from the first improv show, and I’m also really proud of tech theater students because the lights were incredible, the sounds and the music. Overall I’m just so proud of everyone,” said Gonzalez.
The theater department’s next event will be showcasing their new play “Matilda” on Jan. 25-28 next year.
