It’s a spring production with a twist. Or eight twists, really.
Cariboo Hill Secondary School isn’t just offering up one play for its big spring theatre company showcase this year. It’s offering up eight – and the audience gets to help choose how the evening unfolds.
Cariboo Hill is serving up Made to Order starting tonight (Wednesday, April 27) and running until Saturday at the school’s studio theatre. The night includes seven short comedies, ranging from 10 to 20 minutes apiece. And, on Friday and Saturday nights, the students will also present the Canadian drama I Hate You on Mondays.
In Made to Order, the audience gets a “menu” to choose which comedies they’d like to see in which order. Popular vote will determine which show is up next.
“It’s as if you’re dining on theatre,” explains teacher Trevor Found, who directs the Cariboo Hill theatre company – a full-year credit course involving kids from grades 9 through 12. And he notes that the interactivity of the presentation means that everyone, from actors to stage crew, have to be prepared to work on the fly. “It means we have to do whatever’s called for.”
Kate Olivares, a Grade 12 student, is starring in Time Flies – a short comedy that tells the story of the life of two mayflies, who quickly learn they have only 24 hours in which to live and so have to pack in dating, mating and procreating before they die at the end of the day.
Olivares laughs at playing May, the “vivacious and lively” mayfly who has to come to terms with her own mortality.
“It’s sort of a challenge to balance May being really goofy … with balancing the moment when she knows she’s going to die.”
Olivares confesses she’s not always as vivacious as her character – “It takes a lot of energy, and a lot of water,” she laughs – but says she’s had great support from her castmates.
“I’ve been given so much freedom to play the part, to take risks,” she says.
Fellow Grade 12 student Donovan Schwalback is on board in Controlling Interest, in which he plays an eight-year-old boy who’s in charge of a big corporation – and whose life is thrown into chaos when a group of girls starts making overtures.
“At first it was very unorthodox for me,” Schwalback says, noting he found it challenging to envision how to play an eight-year-old trying to be an adult. “I’m neither of those. It’s really interesting to be in the mindset of that character because it’s so foreign to me.”
In past outings with the theatre company, he says, he’s always played more serious roles, and he’s usually been one of the younger students playing alongside older kids. To be now one of the older students and mentor the younger ones has been rewarding.
“It gives me a chance to broaden my horizons a bit too,” he says. “We’re not just a class. In a way we’re like a family, we spend so much time together.”
For the serious side of the evening, the company is offering up I Hate You On Mondays. Written by Canadian playwright Kate Miles when Miles was just 16 years old, the play follows the stories of three young people struggling through a difficult period in their lives – looking at issues of sex, sexual orientation, drug use, religion and the search for identity.
Found notes that I Hate You On Mondays won’t be appropriate for a young audience, so he’s deliberately kept the two halves of the bill separate. Anyone who doesn’t want to see the darker subject matter raised by the second half of the night is welcome to leave before it starts.
“It’s very gritty, down to earth, and not apologetic in its look at teenagers who go through dark periods in their lives,” Found says. “I believe in this show because of its authenticity. The characters are very real and three-dimensional and in some ways flawed … but you empathize with them.”
Grade 12 student Arthi Chandra, who stars as Bernadette, has embraced the challenge of taking on Miles’ script, which doesn’t shy away from the dark side of teenage reality – including such potentially troubling subject matter as self-harm.
“I would use almost the word ‘raw’ rather than gritty,” she says. “It’s very real, very raw, there’s no sugar-coating.”
Chandra notes that the production doesn’t use the typical sorts of characters seen in most teen-focused productions.
“There’s a lot of truth to the character herself. She’s very damaged, she does have a very haunted past,” she says, admitting the role hasn’t always been easy. “It’s been a struggle, definitely. There’s a lot of long hours, a lot of emotional ups and downs in this play, but it’s totally worth it in the end.”
Chandra is grateful to her fellow company members, who helped her work through her character’s story and who were all willing to take a head-on look at the issues raised by the production.
She hopes that a large audience will turn out to see the show, she says, because it’s both entertaining and educational for the audience to see – and start to empathize with – the struggles of the young people in the story.
“If people get a chance, they should really, really come see it.”
CHECK IT OUT: QUICK FACTS
Made To Order is onstage Wednesday, April 27 through Saturday, April 30 at Cariboo Hill Studio Theatre, 8580 16th Ave., starting at 7 p.m. nightly. The night includes seven short comedies by Canadian and American playwrights: Time Flies, The Philadelphia, and Sure Thing, by David Ives; Controlling Interest, by Wayne S. Rawley; Ties That Bind Featuring the Astounding Krispinsky, by Eric Coble; The Blueberry Hill Accord, by Daryl Watson; and This is a Play, by Daniel MacIvor.
Tickets are $10, including admission to the late show, I Hate You On Mondays.
I Hate You on Mondays, by Canadian playwright Kate Miles, is onstage Friday and Saturday only at 9:30 p.m., with a separate matinee (not including Made to Order) on Saturday at 2 p.m. Matinee-only tickets are $5.
Call 604-296-6890 for information.
