Director's Note

If there was ever a year that reinforced why I love what I do, it has been this one. There are undoubtedly few teachers that will tell you this year has been everything they wished it to be. While I would echo the same sentiment, I can also tell you that having the opportunity to work with students through extracurricular theatre has been nothing short of a godsend.

While The Internet is Distract-OH LOOK A KITTEN! The 146 Point Flame, and 6ft Scenes were all forced to record their shows without an audience, we held out hope that the musical would open under more normal circumstances. Yet, we still needed to prepare for every eventuality, and thus we settled on a show that would afford us the maximum amount of flexibility, FAME.

I will admit that I was not extremely familiar with FAME before picking the show, but as a JR show, I had certain expectations, and I did not expect quite what I got. It's a show that's definitely starting to show its age in the way the characters are written, and were I allowed to I would certainly make some changes. Instead, as a cast we have had a fair number of pretty frank discussions about the problems inherent in the script and have done our best to play against the stereotypes that they represent.

Throughout the entire process, this cast has handled themselves with grace and professionalism and although I regret that more students were not able to participate in theatre this year, it has been wonderful to get work with each member of the cast on a closer basis than during a show like Beauty and the Beast JR. They will astound you with their hard work and talent just as they have astounded me all the way from auditions through to today.

I hope you enjoy the show, and for those of you watching from home, I hope we get to see you back in the theatre soon!

-Mr. Simonton