EBHS Drama Club Preparing for "Anne of Green Gables'

Kathleen Joyce had to shout to be heard over the group of fellow students last week.

“Everyone, quiet. They are doing a sound check,” the stage managed shouted before returning to a small project she’d begun on a prop to be used for the East  Brunswick High School Drama Club’s production of “.”

Kathleen and close to 50 of her students have been working on the show since mid-September and are finally ready to see the curtain raised on their performance.  The show will begin Thursday and run through Saturday at the .

“It’s a lot of work, and I love the people here,” said Kristen Berezniak, a Junior who will be playing the lead role of Anne.

Kristen, Kathleen and others say that the long hours they’ve put in on the show, and on others like it, are something they will never forget.  Over the course of time members of the Drama Club have grown close, helping each other with homework, to run lines or anything else that might come up.

“They’re like a family,” said teacher Jeffrey Davis. “They’re really supportive of each other. A kid who is good in one subject will help another who is bad in another. They pair up with one another and work together.”

Weston Ganz, a senior who is playing Marilla says she’ll be sad when this year’s productions ware done.

“Every year, when people leave, you feel like some of your family is leaving. It’s sad.” she said.

Those who take part in the drama club’s fall and spring productions learn everything about putting on a show, usually by having to do it. From set building, to light and sound checks, to costumes, and rehearsals and more, every aspect of the theater is introduced, and mastered, by these students.

“I try and train them to run a program as professionally as possible,” said Davis. “I have high expectations of them.”

For people like Kathleen, who works as the stage manager, that might mean making props out of almost nothing, or  mananging rehearsal time and the schedules of a variety of performers and stagehands.

“When I get to the rehearsal, I have to do a lot of technical work for the director,” she said. “I do some blocking and take notes for the run throughs.”

The EBHS Drama Club is lucky in that it has a large pool of talent to pick from. The district’s theater program includes three acting classes, Stage Craft, and Mask and Movement.

“Five to seven kids every year go on to college to study theater, acting, or stage craft…we hear from kids that go onto college programs that they are very well prepared,” said Davis.

For seniors like Weston, who would like to study theater next year, it’s about more than just learning a craft.

“I just think it’s so cool. I just love it,” she said.

The East Brunswick High School’s production of “Anne of Green Gables” will run at 7 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. Tickets will be sold at the door. Adults are $10 and students/senior citizens are $5.