A gentle strain of music from the 1940s fills the room, transporting everyone back in time.
A family laments the damage done to a tree memorializing a son lost during the war. A couple worries about how the mother will take their relationship. And then betrayal is unearthed, leading everyone to a final, heartbreaking scene.
When the final music drifts off, each person drops their character, laughing and chatting, while the room transforms back into the cafeteria at North Rock Creek High School.
NRC is one of three schools in the area competing this year in the OSSAA One-Act Regionals, including Chandler and McLoud. This is NRC’s third year competing. Last year was their first making it to state and having two students make all-star cast at regionals.
Drama teacher Brandy Bond said they’ve been working on their one-act—“All My Sons” by Arthur Miller—from the second to last week in July. She chose the play because it was the first she ever directed while at Oklahoma Baptist University.
“I love it because it has a protagonist and an antagonist that could be swapped,” Bond said. “Chris actually doesn’t really have a lot of flaws as a person, and Joe has lot of them. Which I love because we all have flaws.”
Inspired by true events, “All My Sons” is about self-made businessman Joe Keller, who sold the government defective plane parts during the war but let his partner take the fall. It carries themes of grief, guilt, and family.
Junior Bowie Gibson, who plays matriarch Kate Keller, said she was drawn to the journey of discovering a character.
“Then you finally get to perform in front of everyone… I feel like the character because I’m, like, whoa, that’s really real, and I’m telling the story how I’m meant to be,” she said.
Chandler High School is taking a less conventional route. While most schools choose dramas, they are going for a comedy, performing “How to Survive Being in a Shakespeare Play.”
“I’m surprised we didn’t get in trouble by the math class next to us, because they were giggling and laughing,” Inda Jo Conway, drama teacher, said about the first readthrough. “Some of my new faces were blowing me out of the water with these accents and characterizations I didn’t know they had in their wheelhouse yet.”
The play, which is essentially a how-to guide for characters to avoid death in a Shakespearean tragdey, is an ensemble piece, with every actor playing anywhere from four to six characters. That was one of the drawing points for the students.
“The scenes change and everything changes, but you’re also with different people each time, so it just gives you a chance to really work with everybody,” said junior Weston Miller.
Senior Nathaniel Nunn added it also makes it difficult. “One of my main struggles I’ve had is definitely memorization with all these different characters and making sure that I’m sticking with the correct character and using the correct characterization with each of those,” he said.
Seniors Trinity Reyes, Abbey Lane and Felicity Hamilton at McLoud High School said they’d like to win; however, it’s more about making an impact with their one-act. Teacher Shonna Vandivort said she knows they are taking a risk by performing “Live to Tell” by Eric Coble, but it was a topic that spoke to her students.
The one-act is the story of three victims of human trafficking, an issue that Vandivort said hits close to home in McLoud, with their proximity to I-40.
“To me, sex trafficking really stood out because I’m Native American, and that is a big deal in the Native American culture. There is the red handprint; that’s what it stands for,” Reyes said. She’s a member of the Kickapoo tribe.
The production is small - Reyes, Hamilton and senior Alivia Wapskineh play Isabella, Alison and Mackayla, three young women from different backgrounds recounting their stories in hospital intake rooms. They spend the entire play on stage. Lane is the student director. It was important to Vandivort that the cast and crew be entirely young women to make sure that everyone felt safe doing such a heavy topic.
While learning the lines is always a challenge, this play has some extra hurdles. “It’s really hard to show the type of emotions that would be going through these characters,” Hamilton said. “I’m so proud of us and literally how far we’ve come just in the past couple weeks. Our facial expressions, our actions, they’re so much better than they were in the first week.”
Chandler High School competes at the 4A One Act Regionals on Oct. 10 in Tonkawa. North Rock Creek competes at Elgin High School on Oct. 15, while McLoud is at Cushing High School on the same day, both in 5A.