The Metea Theater Drama Club had their kickoff on Aug. 26 and had their auditions for the fall and children’s play in the following days. But due to such an advanced schedule compared to the previous school years, there has been a decline in the amount of students joining the Metea theater program.
Joining new extracurriculars at the beginning of the school year can be hard, especially if some programs are new to you. Imagine being interested in joining a club during your first year of high school, but after the first week of school, you find out these events have already started. Activities starting earlier than normal this year are making students feel rushed and unprepared.
Getting involved is a major priority for Metea students. With clubs starting so early this year, it has been extremely difficult for students to join these clubs.
The theater schedule is not completely chosen by the theater department. Due to music concerts that are held around the same time as show days for the fall play, the dates are not completely in the hands of the directors.
“It all kind of depends on the other activities,” Co-Director Sara Wojtasik said, “because we are not the only ones using the auditorium.”
Due to the school year starting so late, the department insisted that auditions were as early as possible to be able to kick off rehearsals right away.
Even if there is a valid reason behind the schedule changes, students in theater are frustrated by how fast everything is moving and feel a bit unprepared for the upcoming school year in theater.
Since auditions for the fall and children’s plays were during the first week of school, new students hoping to get involved in the theater program may not have had the chance to join. This is especially problematic as the theater program needs to have enough people for the cast and crew of all productions.
Last year’s musical had a total of 70 people in the cast and crew. That is a large group of people, but a large number of people usually join the musical as the school musical is the most well known event for theater. For the fall and children’s play, there is less cast and crew, but this means more students need to be involved in these plays because they are less well known.
Getting involved during the new school year can be tough, especially if you are new to the school. Packed schedules and poor student outreach does not help guide new students to these activities.
All school activities are valuable and deserve a proper schedule. Even outside of the world of theater, all activities cannot function properly without student involvement. It is important that activities and clubs are an outlet for students and a form of expression, not something that is going to stress them out even more.
