After three years of performing in productions of Lebanon High School’s Wet Paint Players, senior Jill Mitchell is taking on a new role for the company’s inaugural LHS Drama Festival.
“It’s the first time I’m not on stage,” Mitchell said last week while helping to direct a rehearsal of Gruesome Playground Injuries, one of four plays in the festival. “It’s been pretty interesting. I used to have to focus on what I had to do, where I had to be, my own inflections of my character. Now I have to think of everyone’s inflection, how they’re feeling at the moment.”
On Friday afternoon in the auditorium of the former Seminary Hill School, Mitchell was helping senior Sarah Sentman and freshman Ryan Baker sort through the feelings and body language of their characters in Gruesome Playground Injuries. The Rajiv Joseph play follows childhood friends Doug and Kayleen through the evolution of a 30-year relationship from platonic playmates through adolescent angst over whether to take things to the hormonal level, to the trials of adulthood — a process mixing humor, poignancy and, oh, yeah, multiple locking of lips, sometimes over and over.
“The kissing is the thing I didn’t expect, at least right away,” Baker said during a break. “This is my first year acting, and I’ve gotten to kiss two people — first in Thoroughly Modern Millie in the fall, and now in this.”
“This” is the first time for both to act in the spotlight.
“I’m still pretty new at this,” Sentman said. “I haven’t had a leading role before.”
In Gruesome Playground Injuries and the festival’s other three plays, the Wet Paint Players are taking on stronger topics than the troupe’s director, Jonathan Verge, remembers attempting during this own acting days with the company in the late 1990s. In addition to addressing subjects of death and pre-marital sex in Gruesome Playground Injuries, the club also is rehearsing for the Andrew Hobgood/Evan Linder play 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche; ART, Yasmina Reza’s three-person comedy involving a failing marriage; and The Late Frost, an adaptation of the poetry of Robert Frost that also addresses adult themes.
“This is something we’re looking to do more of,” Verge said. “These are subjects we should be tackling. There are things like divorce and losing your virginity, things that kids are struggling with. The thinking is that if the plays are more interesting, it encourages them to maybe try out and say, ‘Maybe I can get up on stage and try this.’ ”
Given all the other activities members of the troupe are juggling — sports, jobs, other artistic endeavors and, in the cases of Sentman and Baker, travel to and from their respective homes in Grantham and Plainfield — Verge is marveling at their energy.
“I’ve been so impressed,” Verge said. “This festival is a risk, in some ways. These are long, windy plays. I knew they could do it, but there were a couple of moments early on when I worried. Then to see and hear Ryan and Sarah already off the book, having everything memorized, it’s clear they’ve really risen to the challenge.”
Lebanon High School’s Wet Paint Players present their inaugural drama festival in the auditorium of the former Seminary Hill School in West Lebanon between next Tuesday night and May 7. After performing
Small World
Sharon Elementary School’s One Planet Afterschool Program is inviting Upper Valley residents to loan or donate clothing representing cultures from around the world, for an international fashion and food festival that the program is holding at the school on Saturday.
The school also is looking for volunteers to help at the festival, where there will be performances of the music and dance of various cultures, as well as the serving of cuisine from Japan, China, Italy, Romania, Greece, Ireland, Mexico, sub-Saharan Africa and beyond.
In addition to raising awareness about multiculturalism, the festival also is a fundraiser for the Spanish-language program that One Planet will inaugurate this summer.
To learn more, email Roxana Matthews at rmatthews@wrvsu.org or call her at 603-217-7407.
The Nature of Things
University of New Hampshire entomologist Alan Eaton traces the northward migration of ticks, many of them spreading Lyme disease and other ailments, on Thursday night at 7 in the hall of the North Thetford Church. Admission is free to the lecture, last in the Thetford Historical Society’s series for the spring.
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Cells
Rogue Robots, the 4-H robotics club in Claremont, is sending its four-member high school team to the national SeaPerch competition in May, thanks to their second-place finish in a regional competition at University of New Hampshire on April 8.
Eighth-grader Josh Shuey, homeschoolers Alison Numme (10th grade) and Matthew Page (12th grade) and Stevens High senior Stephen Bosonac will compete at Georgia Tech on the weekend of May 19 and 20.
In sixth-grade competition at regionals, Claremont Middle School students Christian Picard and Wilson Yang and homeschooler Anna Numme won several categories, including the obstacle course and challenge, tied for first for their grade level and finished fourth overall among 50 teams.
SeaPerch involves taking remote underwater vehicles, built by the teams, through different timed challenges.
Community Service
Woodsville High School’s G. Hampton McGaw chapter of the National Honor Society recently raised $450 for the family of Zach, Alicia, Owen and Brooke Brooks, who lost their house on Central Street in Woodsville to a fire this past winter. The honor society contributed the money it collected from a “penny war” at the high school.
Prep Achievements
Rhett Anderson, of East Thetford, placed ninth among prep-school students in her division during the recent Texas State Junior Classical League championships in San Antonio.
Anderson attends The Hockaday School in Dallas. She qualified for the Texas championships by placing in the top five in the contest for Hockaday’s part of the state.
Educator Excellence
The Vermont Humanities Council is inviting nominations of teachers, school librarians and other educators for its Victor R. Swenson Award. June 15 is the deadline to nominate a Vermont educator who, in the words of the council, “exemplifies excellence in the teaching of the humanities.”
To submit a nomination and learn more, visit vermonthumanities.org
In the Books
Thetford Academy hosts its second springtime Book Buzz session of readings by school-age bibliophiles on Thursday night at 6.
Modeled on the Norwich Bookstore’s Pages in the Pub program, the Book Buzz will highlight recommendations for summer reading for students in kindergarten through grade 12. Admission is $10, with the bookstore donating a portion of the proceeds to the Thetford Academy Library. Advance tickets are available at the academy and at the bookstore.
Scholarship-shape
The Woodsville-Wells River Rotary Club is inviting area teachers with plans to supplement or enhance their educations to apply for scholarships.
May 1 is the deadline to submit applications for scholarships, which will total $5,000. To acquire applications and learn more, email mepriestley@gmail.com. The rotary club will interview the top three candidates for scholarships on May 13.
Patrick O’Grady contributed to this report.
David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com and at 603-727-3304.
Education-related news and announcements also can be sent to schoolnotes@vnews.com.