When choosing this year’s fall play, Theatre teacher Alex Moore wanted to elevate one simple thing. He wanted to amplify the voices of women in the department, through the lines of “Little Women.”
“This year, knowing that we had a stronger group of female artists giving them a chance to shine. But also, Parkway Central had not worked on a play that was written by a female playwright,” Moore said.
“Little Women” follows the March sisters, specifically fighting against the gender norms at the time.
“Jo is the writer, artist, and creator, who is working on becoming a female author in and around the Civil War,” Moore said. “She’s fighting against some of the standards of how women should behave during the Civil War.”
The play most importantly addresses the theme of change along with family, identity, and friendship. Junior Company Stage Manager Gabby Wendt notices the intertwining of the messages of “Little Women.” Noting specifically what themes, the play doesn’t include.
“The relationship between Jo and Laurie is more friendship based. The romance plot is there, but romance isn’t a big part of this play. In particular, it’s focused on sisterhood, childhood, adulthood, like the transition between those,” Wendt said.
Relationships between characters have been just as important as relationships in the production as well. Junior actor Donovan Morton-Macklin enjoys the social aspect of theater and credits it for helping him grow.
“The best moment so far has definitely been just getting to know the other actors. I feel like I have become a lot more social because of the people around me and having the privilege to work alongside them has been the best part of this experience by far,” Morton-Macklin said.
Furthermore, the bond between the cast has helped actors adjust, finding the best embodiment of their roles. After fiddling around with a character, senior AJ Joerling knew it was perfect from the reaction of his peers.
“For my role, I have to do a parrot voice and for every show, I’ve just kind of been messing around with it. Finally, at one of the rehearsals, I did my first line. I was practicing it and I thought this one sounds pretty good,” Joreling said “So I did my first line, and just immediately laughter came from everyone on stage. That’s how I knew it was the one, for sure.”
The camaraderie amongst the cast extends from actors, techies, and stage managers. The positive environment even helps the cast energy during performance. Junior Actor Kiera Anderson Pittman plays Jo March, and knows she can rely on the cast and crew when she is discouraged.
“Gabby Wendt, she’s been a stage manager and a close friend for a long time now, and she’s really just good at keeping a positive attitude and mindset,” Anderson-Pittman said. “Even when I’m beating myself up about not knowing my lines or my blocking, she’s just really good at keeping my spirit up.”
Keeping spirits up is something that’s difficult in a long play.
“On the actor side, some of the actors don’t leave the stage for the full two hours. So just having that stamina to be talking, performing, memorizing lines at that pace,” Moore said. In addition, other factors lead to a sense of tiredness. “One of the most challenging parts is that it’s a drama, a lot of the stuff in the show is not very light-hearted. So it can kind of be draining, just like staying energized, finding the humor in the show where it’s present,” Joerling said.
Although relationships are a crucial part to a successful production, managing people and personalities has its difficulties.
“There’s gonna be drama, there’s gonna be people fighting. I may think some people are like this or that, I might not even get along with somebody, but for the sake of this production, for the sake of having peace with these people, I need to be amicable,” Wendt said.
The technical side also mirrors this challenge. Production Stage Manager Lily Herkenhoff finds it difficult balancing the line between relationships and leadership.
“You have to be able to maintain a professional like relationship within this tight knit community, within your friends, because you still are their leader, even if you are their friend,” Herkenhoff said.
Alongside organizing people, being diligent in tech work has also provided a challenge. Assistant Production Stage Manager Whitney Shrensker faces this difficulty as a self proclaimed not very organized person. However, Shrensker has been adapting to the setback.
“I’ve been trying to put documents where they belong, I make sure to put it in the right folder on the drive, and then if I have paper stuff, I have a binder, and I try to put my stuff in my binder,” Shrensker said. “I started bringing a different bag to school for rehearsal material, just so I have it separate from school stuff so I don’t lose anything in the process.”
A successful production needs both strong connections on the technical side and the acting side. Senior Chance McCline (Laurie Lawrence), is grateful for the important connection between tech and acting.
“A show can’t come alive, if we are talking about the civil war era for example, and we’re wearing Adidas, it wouldn’t make sense. That’s why we have a costume crew, it brings the whole show to life. Actors aren’t anything without their crew,” McCline said.
Ultimately, the cohesiveness of the play has been rewarding.
“I think that the people in our community are so nice and loving,” McCline said. “I have the pleasure of working with so many great people and it’s a fun experience. The crew is great, the cast is great, and hopefully the show will be great.”
