Pictured are members of the Lawrence High Theater Company, whose presentation of “The Audition” won Best Production in the 2013 Bucks County Playhouse High School Theater Festival, (front) Emma Anderson Beavers, Mackenzie Crow, Shane O’Toole, Carter Williams, (middle) Katrina Hicks, Rachel Fury, Natasha Vargas, Marol Feickert, Yamilex Deida, (back) Brianna Covington, Jacob Martindell, Jason Bembry and Sienna Jones.
Lawrence High School wins Best Production at a student theater festival.
Sitting with his fellow classmates at the Bucks County PlayhouseStudent Theater Festival, Mackenzie Crow had to do a double take upon hearing the announcement that Lawrence High had won the award for Best Production.
“It actually took me a second to register that name and then I ran down and gave people high fives on my way to get the award,” said Crow, a senior who directed the award-winning play The Audition.
Crow’s amazement and apprehension on that Monday, April 22, weren’t the least bit surprising though, seeing as the accolade marked the first time Lawrence had achieved the particular honor. And although the moment was a “little overbearing, a bit much” and took some time to settle in, Crow couldn’t have been happier.
“It was really satisfying,” Crow said. “When I was looking at the performance and the script, I remember sitting down and going through the details and worrying about how to verbalize the direction for certain scenes and how to get the idea across. Luckily, I had a great cast and I couldn’t have been happier.”
The play, written by Don Zolidis, focuses on a new drama teacher, who is holding auditions for “A Chorus Line,” a production he plans to put on at the school. The play centers around drama and comedy as a cast of characters that comes through the audition, including everyone from the shy to the energetic.
Lorie Baldwin, LHS theatre director, said that the scenario allowed the students to slide into roles that fit their personalities. According to Baldwin, this opportunity allowed the actors to express their full potential, including seniors Shane O’Toole and Emma Beavers Anderson who brought home awards for Best Featured Actor and the Adjudicators’ Award of Excellence.
“The play is full of drama as well as comedy, and all the different roles allowed the students to show off their personalities,” Baldwin said. “The great part about it was that Shane and Emma could act out the roles, while just being themselves. It really played to their strengths.”
The seamless fit in the character development department also helped bring attention to the rest of the production, Crow said.
“Because I know my acting class well, I tried to match the personalities of my actors with those of the characters,” Crow said. “I had them do a little mock audition to see what they were suited for, that way we could skip the character development process because they were already as people closely related to the characters.”
Another actress who was able to jump right into her role was Sienna Jones, playing the role of Uma. Jones’s enthusiastic persona bode well for the role of Uma, who is a mirror image of Jones, Crow said.
“Sienna and the character Uma were almost exactly the same, so Sienna had a great time and jumped right in,” he said. “It worked out perfectly and I don’t recalling having to tell her to do anything because she just got it right off the bat and that made the character more believable.”
The ease and comfort that was created by the casting only made the monumental winning announcement over some stiff competition—the festival included more than two dozen schools—is something that Baldwin was honored to witness for the seniors and the theatre company as a whole.
“I was proud to see the kids experience something like this and see what they could accomplish,” Baldwin said. “Sometimes it’s hard to compete with some of the private schools, but after all of the hard work and dedication that they put in, they know now that they can keep up with those guys.”
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