theater – AHS NEWSPAPER

Theater Guild Presents You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown on Time Crunch

May 18, 2025

AREETA FAIZ || STAFF WRITER

The cast and crew of Andover High School’s You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown grappled with a tight deadline typical of a musical in the spring. This year, they performed their yearly show on May 8th, 9th, and 10th.

You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown is a musical based on the popular comic strip Peanuts, featuring familiar characters and a relatively small cast. Auditions ended up being held at the end of March, leaving about a month for the group to finalize their set, blocking, lines, and choreography.

According to the show’s director Susan Choquette, there are several reasons for this turnaround.

“When we participate in the Drama Festival, we never know how far in the process we’re going to get, [which] delays the start of the spring show,” she said, adding, “The Collins Center gets very, very busy in the spring, since a lot of dance studios do their recitals here.”

Other seasonal events include AP testing and junior prom. “It is a challenging time to put a show together, no matter what you choose,” Choquette said.

The last time the Theater Guild performed a spring musical was 2021, slightly off schedule due to the pandemic. “We do a musical in the spring every four years, and other times we usually just do a regular play,” said Nina Bond, a longtime theater participant and sophomore playing Sally Brown.

“A regular [musical in the fall] takes about three months to rehearse and put together,” said sophomore Grace Armstrong, who took a break from her typical athletics to pursue the role of Lucy Van Pelt. As a principal character, Armstrong and others are required to stay at school for up to four hours nearly every day of the week. “I had to be off-book very, very quickly,” she said.

“I’ve been going over my lines, every day, every night, and making sure I’m prepared for every rehearsal,” Bond said prior to the show’s debut.

“There’s a lot of material, but we’ve been good about it,” said Gall Shapira, a sophomore who played Marcy in the ensemble. Shapira brought up another challenge regarding their roles: “We’re playing children, so we’ve been told that they move differently. Their facial expressions, their mannerisms are different, and we have to sort of embody that.”

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Drama Guild Hosts METG High School Festival Semi-Finals

May 6, 2025

Christina Saad || STAFF WRITER

Andover High School’s drama guild hosted and performed at the Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild (METG) High School Drama Festival Semi-Finals Round on March 14.

The METG Drama Festival is a three-round theater competition in which high schools from across Massachusetts must put together a 40-minute play. Each play is one act and is produced by members of a competing high school.

The drama guild spent many weeks producing and connecting the various elements of their play, and ended up making it all the way to semi-finals. They focused consistently on creating a balance between their play’s acting and technical elements.

This year, AHS’s drama guild performed their own version of “The Actor’s Nightmare,” written by Christopher Durang. The play revolves around an accountant who is inexplicably thrust into the world of acting. He must perform roles that he does not know the lines for, and is often forced to improvise along the way.

“You show up on stage, and you have no recollection of why you’re there, or what you’re doing, or what your lines are,” said senior and actor Carmina Merrill.

The play ends in a way that leaves the audience wondering whether this “nightmare” was real life, or if it was all a dream.

“I’d like to think it was real life, even though it has this very dream-like quality to it—very nightmarish,” said Merrill.

The actors and tech crew reflected on their performance after the semi-finals. Other than a few small areas for improvement, they thought they performed well.

“I was happy with the performance we put up…” Merrill said. “Drama Festival is tough because only two plays move up out of the six that come to our site.”

The group worked hard in the time between preliminaries and semi-finals, taking judges’ criticisms to heart during rehearsals. They worked on refining sets and diving further into character roles and acting choices.

“You could have a really beautiful set, but the lighting is not as beautiful or as well executed,” said Theater Arts Director Susan Choquette. “You could have a really beautiful set, but maybe the acting values aren’t as strong.”

First and foremost, the judges look for harmony between all elements of the play. They want the technical elements and acting values to be performed at the same level.

“They’re looking for all of the puzzle pieces to fit together, and that they’re executed at a very high level,” Choquette said.

When producing a play, the actors and tech crew first spend a lot of time understanding the story and characters of the play. Since they were recreating an original play, the team spent multiple rehearsals analyzing the script and understanding its thematic values before beginning production.

Once they understood the play, they started planning how the actors would move on stage during specific scenes and constructed sets that were both appealing and efficient. They worked on the scenes one by one and later put everything together.

“We have a [tech crew] that works in the shop almost every day in the weeks leading up to the [performance],” said senior and actor Kai Cruz.

The crew worked on building the sets and painting the completed pieces, starting with the largest sets first. They pre-programmed most of the lighting cues in the show, excluding the spotlight put on the lead actor, which was done manually. In addition to the sets and lighting, they also had sound designers and a running crew who aided in scene transitions.

“All these technical elements worked together to produce a great show, and being in the position to call the show was a great experience,” said junior and stage manager Evan Leary.

In addition to the 40-minute time limit of the play, the tech crew and cast were also expected to arrange all of their sets onstage prior to the performance within a 5-minute time limit.

“Our tech crew has to make sure that they’re able to build a set that is not only visually appealing, but able to be executed technically,” said Cruz.

Failing to meet the time requirement is grounds for disqualification, so efficiency must be prioritized. Leary was in charge of organizing the five-minute set up and assigning jobs for the crew.

“I would say that the five-minute setup and overall organization was the most difficult part for me, but it was still very enjoyable, and I had a great time running it,” said Leary.

Drama Festival members also expressed that they specifically enjoy hosting competitions. They find it a unique opportunity to meet and get to know people from other high schools, and it is a great day of theater in general.

Arts Community

Mamma Mia: Post-COVID Production Running Smooth

November 19, 2021

By Ethan Zabar

STAFF WRITER

Andover High School’s 2021 theater production, Mamma Mia!, is going great in a post-COVID-19 year as the November 18 debut grows closer.

The cast and supporting crew of Mamma Mia! were more ready than ever to pick back up with shows as they were before the COVID-19 pandemic. Tessa Barcelo, a senior and lead role in the play explained that the acting crew had settled back into pre-COVID theatre well and was making notable progress towards a great production despite the setbacks last year.

“We’ve learned to roll with the punches,” Barcelo said, “[The production] has gone right back to the Collins Center stage, so we feel at home again.”

The production this year is not without its difficulties, and according to Barcelo, wearing masks during the performance has an impact on the cast’s ability to sing. However, she and other cast members have found workarounds for the potential issues of wearing masks on stage that still ensure COVID safety. “Disposable masks, because they’re more flexible, let you open your mouth more and sing better than the cloth masks,” Barcelo noted, “They’re better for projecting.”

GUEST PHOTO / Anat Briskin
Tech crew member Jillian Boyer painting tiles for the Mamma Mia set

This year there have been a few notable additions to the production staff that according to the Director of Arts at AHS, Susan Choquette, have helped boost the potential for the show. “Typically Mr. Desjardins is the musical director of the play, but he recently just had a baby,” Choquette said, “…so I invited a colleague of mine,…Thom Smoker. He’s a great musician and singer, he works well with young voices, and also he’s now teaching music…at Berklee School of Music and Endicott College, so he’s really fitting us in.”

Choquette also explained that Mamma Mia has a new choreographer, Stephanie Morris: the owner of the local dance studio Creative Arts Academy. “She’s working really hard because there’s a lot of dance in this show,” Choquette stated.

This year’s show has had a demanding regiment thus far, and according to Choquette, that was not likely to let up until the day of Mamma Mia’s debut. “Somebody’s rehearsing…six days a week, whether it’s me, or Thom, or Stephanie. Sometimes there are even two rehearsals in a day.” Choquette said, “We’re a busy group trying to get ready for this performance…it takes a village.”

Despite the strenuous schedule and minor COVID-related nuisances, Mamma Mia’s cast is keeping a positive mentality and has set the bar high for the production this year. Choquette described Mamma Mia as the perfect fit for production in a post-pandemic year: heartwarming, well known, and all-around fun.

“What I’ve learned is that we can do anything,” Choquette said. “Bring on a global pandemic, we’re still going to make theater.”

Another major cast member of Mamma Mia, Sadie Rooney, matched Choquette’s praise of the production’s progress thus far. “It’s been a long journey, but we have overcome a lot of the roadblocks put in our path by COVID… The sets and lighting this year are truly gorgeous and I’m so glad to be back on the stage.” Rooney said, “Because of the lack of theatre in many places last year, the cast is even bigger than ever and so excited to be performing once again.”

Rooney spoke for the entire cast when she described her excitement for this year’s production. “From what [the production staff] have said to me, they seem to be just as excited as we are. They all give up so much time and energy to this production and we are all so incredibly grateful.” Rooney continued, “ABBA is a fan favorite for many, so I think Mamma Mia is a perfect way to bring back theatre [to Andover].”

Barcelo, Choquette, Rooney, and the rest of Mamma Mia’s staff urge everyone available to check out the show and have exclaimed high expectations for this year’s production. “It’s such a fun show and not something you’ll want to miss!” Rooney concluded.

Tickets will be sold at the door or online at the Andover Theatre Arts website. Be sure to check out Mamma Mia’s debut at the AHS Collins Center:

Thursday, November 18 – 7:30 p.m.

Friday, November 19 – 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, November 20 – 7:30 p.m.

Sunday, November 21 – 2:00 p.m.

Tuesday, November 23 – 7:30 p.m.