Monica Cho, News Writer

On Mar. 13, the entire upper secondary school was captivated by their peers’ performances during an hour-long show of three one-act plays, which marked the commencement of the community coming together to celebrate the theater arts during school hours.

The plays the drama students performed were “Everystudent” by the MYP 10 Drama students, “Please Hold” by the DP Theatre students, and “The Actor’s Nightmare” by the Theatre Arts students. ‘Everystudent’ and ‘Please Hold’ were written by the students to teach their classmates lessons and provide them with something to contemplate at the end of the play.

The secondary students did not know they were going to watch a play and were taken aback when they heard the news. “First off, I didn’t realize that we had an assembly on that day, so I was pretty surprised,” said junior Grace Shin. She continued, “Truthfully at first, I didn’t really like the idea, because I had a summative due at 3:10 p.m. “

However, once the lights went down, the students’ opinions changed. “Once I got there, I was really happy because the lights were off and the atmosphere was really cool and everybody seemed to enjoy it. Also, I think it was a really good experience, because I’ve never experienced anything like this at GSIS before. It was worth the time,” said Grace.

Senior Caleb Lee said, “I think it was okay to pull the students out of their classes. It’s a once-a-year event, so it was a good experience for the students to watch the drama.” Caleb continued, emphasizing that it is important to learn how to enjoy drama and musical performances. “It is a good experience that the school should promote for the students.”

Students claimed that the plays were comedic, but also were able to communicate meaningful messages in that they allowed the students to reflect upon themselves, and learn lessons about their own personal behavior.

In the play ‘Everystudent,’ the seniors were able to reflect on how they are not taking their last year seriously and should put more consideration into their lives.

In ‘Please Hold,’ Monica and Kevin ignored one another during their date at an Italian restaurant, to converse and play games on their cell phones. The performance attempted to reveal how face to face conversation should be more valuable and that people are too concerned with how they are perceived by others. Everyone could agree that although Monica and Kevin were physically present, they were mentally detached from each other since they did not have any real conversation.

The students definitely had their favorites out of the three. Many of the students claimed ‘Please Hold’ to be their favorite. Hannah Seo explained how it was mainly because she could relate to the story. “Whenever I go to restaurants, I see these couples. They’re dating, but they’re not actually dating because they’re on their phones all the time. We could relate to that really well. All the words that Monica used like “hashtags,” were popular social media words. Those really bought a lot of our bond of sympathy, so it was really nice.”

Senior Jonathan Yim, also claimed ‘Please Hold’ to be his favorite, because the play was original, creative, and interacted with the audience in a fresh new way.

Senior Kevin Cha picked ‘Everystudent’ as his favorite, because he found it realistic and relatable. “Because graduation is coming up and I know in person that a lot of my friends are in similar situations like Ryan, who acted as ‘Everystudent,’ I found it really interesting.”

The actors also surprised the students, because the audience didn’t expect certain students to be the way they were on stage. Referring to ‘Please Hold’, Grace Shin said, “There were only two actors in the whole thing, but I was really shocked by how those two actors played totally different characters than who they actually are. I don’t know who wrote it, but it was amazing. I kept laughing and I heard my friends three rows in front of me laugh.”

The astounding fact was that the students wrote ‘Everystudent’ and ‘Please Hold.’ The reception was positive and it seemed as if student-scriptwriting should continue. “I think the students should continue. I think they can find their talent in scriptwriting and have a chance to show their talents at the school and get some feedback. Also, because the actors did a really good job, it didn’t feel immature at all,” said Grace.

Even though this was the first time the drama department made a bold move of putting on student-directed, written, and produced performances, the audience was not repulsed against it, but was rather attracted to it. “Instead of knowing the play beforehand, you expect the unexpected. I truly liked it,” praised Jonathan about the student scriptwriters.

A lot of the students claimed that, in the future, they should take school hours to watch these kinds of productions, because they are normally reluctant to do so if the shows were only afterschool and they were given the option to choose not to come and watch.

Despite their initial prejudice of how drama is not interesting, the performance overturned those thoughts and made them more optimistic towards drama. #Drama #OMG #Funny