On Saturday, March 14, the Wayland High School Theater Ensemble (WHSTE) performed their original play, “To Parents and Other Neighbors” at Wayland High School for the Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild (METG) State Drama Festival, where they were selected as one of 15 out of over 100 schools to be State Finalists.
For the last nine weeks, WHSTE has worked together to create a 40 minute one-act play to present at METG. At METG, WHS competed against other schools at three levels: Preliminary, semi-final and State Finals, where only three were named State winners.
The play is an original piece, written and directed by the cast and crew. It takes place in Wayland in the year 1954 and follows the ripples sent through the community after a beloved second-grade teacher, Anne Hale, played by junior Callie Zedower, was reported “[unfit] to teach” by the Wayland School Committee due to her past membership in the Communist party. The piece explores themes of “otherness” and community rifts, highlighting the conflicting emotions of town members as political opinions damage relationships and connection throughout the town.
After moving forward in the preliminary round on Feb. 28 at Woburn High School, WHSTE represented Wayland in the semi-finals, which occurred on March 14 at WHS. Included in the announcement of winners for all rounds, judges also gave out various awards to recognize student excellence in acting and technical design.
“I was really proud of the whole company and really excited because, as a freshman, I’m already going and experiencing finals,” freshman spotlight operator Noah Gracia said.
Out of the six schools that performed at WHS, only two were selected to move forward, including WHS’s “To Parents and Other Neighbors”.
“The roar of the crowd at the end [of the play] was really cool [and] really special,” O’Hara said. “Then, the company was so excited, the actors coming off stage and the techies, we really felt like we had been working towards this moment, so it was nice that the crowd felt that way, and in the end, the judges felt that way, so it’s nice to be chosen to move on and perform again.”
At the semi finals, Wayland competed against six other towns, with only two being selected to move forward to State Finals, one of which being Wayland. The State Finals will occur from March 26-28 in Boston. For the next two weeks, the cast plans to continue rehearsing and strengthening the show for the best chance at taking home an award at Finals.
“After we performed at prelims, the judges wrote notes on our performance, and they gave it to our directors of things that were really strong and also things that we could work on,” junior Lexi Greeley, who plays Lucy Newton, said. “So we’re taking those notes in consideration and really tweaking our show to make it what we want it to be, finals worthy.”