LYNN – The Lynn English High School (LEHS) Theater Collective presented a matinee production Monday of its original play, “The Show Must Go On” to an audience that included Mayor Jared Nicholson.
During the show, the actors took the audience through the trials and tribulations of high school theater.
The group experienced a major disruption at the beginning of the school year when the city demanded removal of the rigging system in the auditorium. The rigging, located on the ceiling of the stage, is used to open and close curtains, move stage props, add visual effects, and more.
“At the beginning of the school year, the city came in and removed our rigging system up here because it was unsafe,” said Michael Lopez-Saenz, drama director, teacher and club adviser. “So, they took it out. (This) was going to make the space pretty much unusable as far as shows were concerned. The possibility of having to cancel doing any drama club shows this year was very real.”
As a result, Lopez-Saenz said, his original plan and performance had to be scrapped, and a new one was needed.
“For the first time ever at this school, since I’ve been here, we decided to devise our own piece,” Lopez-Saenz said. “The piece that you’re going to see (Monday) was written by the students. And it was written specifically to address the fact that the theater space is not usable the way it normally is.”
The performance follows theater students from The School of Theater for Juveniles and Troubled Teens, located in Gaslight, Mass., as they continue to immerse themselves in theater, despite the lack of a rigging system and faulty stage lights. The audience also watches as the group experiences “flashbacks,” going back in time to show the ins and outs of their experience in the arts, and why it’s so important to them.
In the director’s statement on the program for the production, Lopez-Saenz wrote that the show was written completely by the students, including dialogue, actions, and story ideas.
“This is a very personal work, with many of the details of the show coming from direct experiences of the participants. The arts are a very important part of these students’ lives, and a very important part of our school,” he wrote.
The production experienced another hitch when one of the members was unable to continue, and two other students joined. With the new members being Spanish speakers, who are actively learning English, the talented playwrights added parts for them that allowed them to be involved while using their first language.
“They wrote a really, really, beautiful script,” Lopez-Saenz said.
The production includes both acting and stage work by students Maciel Alvarado, Shamma Auguste, Alexander Crowe, Rebekah De La Cruz, Carlos Mejia, Kara Nguyen, Jeoanny Rodriguez Perez, Evan Rodriguez, Jazlene Sor-Torres, and Luisa Vellejo Hincapie.
“I had no idea how it was going to come out and it far exceeded my expectations,” Lopez-Saenz said.
The collective will be competing with “The Show Must On,” against seven other schools this Saturday at St. John’s Preparatory School in Danvers at 4:30 p.m., as part of the Massachusetts High School Drama Festival 2024 preliminary competition.
