Drawing on Poe for dramatic effect

The words of poet Edgar Allen Poe came to life this week as EDSS performed Shuddersome: Tales of Poe at the annual Sears Ontario Drama Festival, an event which brings together student plays from across the province.

Drama teacher DJ Carroll said they started looking at a dozen plays at the beginning of the year, eventually narrowing it down to this dark piece.

“This one really stuck out to us, not only because it’s a really strong ensemble piece, but it had a lot of really neat acting moments,” Carroll said.

The play includes Poe’s The Telltale Heart, The Bells, The Raven, and The Mask of the Red Death. There are 22 actors and 10 students who make up the crew.

Rachel Scott has performed in numerous EDSS productions and played the role of narrator.

“It was really difficult because looking at the script we didn’t know what half the words meant, let alone how to pronounce them,” Scott said. “And then memorization was a big thing too. But I feel like we got the hang of it after awhile.”

The play was open to auditions school-wide and included students from every grade. An adjudicator judges each play and chooses who moves on to the regional showcase in April and then the provincial showcase in May.

“He’s looking for first of all, technical stuff like lighting and sound, were the cues done properly?” Carroll explained. “He’s going to be looking at choral work, are they all on, are they in sync? He’s going to be looking at use of levels, colour, costuming. And then on top of all that he’s going to be looking at the level of acting, do they project, do they make their moments, do they hit the right beats?”

The school moved onto the regional level in 2012 with their rendition of The Tunafish Eulogy, a tragedy about a young boy’s death. They performed The Legend of Sleepy Hollow last year, which didn’t make it past the district level. The festival originated in 1946 with three plays and now has upwards of 350 entries per year.

“The hard thing about the adjudication process is it’s one person’s judgment and if they happen to like a certain type of play then it can be hard,” Carroll said. “Ultimately it’s about sharing the art. That’s what we do with the other 17 schools, we share the art with everybody.”

Cast and crew members made their way down to Monsignor Doyle Catholic Secondary School a few times this week to see other schools’ plays before they performed on Thursday evening. They’ve been rehearsing since the end of December, just before Christmas break.

Scott went down to see a couple comedy plays this week.

“One was student written from SJAM and it was really well done for a student play. I thought the acting was really good,” Scott said.

Cole Hickman, who plays the prince, says he’s looking forward to seeing different directors’ styles, in contrast to the darkness of their play. Carroll said the biggest challenge to their play is working together as an ensemble, which Hickman echoed.

“I think it takes the effort of the entire cast and crew, as opposed to some other plays that may just take one person and they get all the spotlight,” Hickman said.

They have to synchronize all 22 people at certain times because they’re all on stage, not an easy task. Carroll also notes it can be difficult to make schedules work for a large cast, with part-time jobs and extra-curricular activities.

Timing is another point which requires lots of rehearsal, added Chris Driedger, who plays a shudder.

“For the shudders, the ensemble is kind of difficult because you can’t just start talking and then say your line and somebody says something and another line. It’s all sorts of nonsensical little peanut gallery stuff,” Driedger said.

Matt Lalonde, another narrator, says he saw a lot of good acting at the plays he went to at the festival thus far. While intricate, he adds it’s been fun putting theirs together.

“The ending’s really fun. You have a big buildup to a very intense moment that should be very exciting to see,” Lalonde said.

Carroll says they’ll be performing it for the hometown crowd, likely sometime in April.