In the Roberts/Dubbs Auditorium late at night, students huddle around scripts, test lighting effects, and sort through potential costume designs. Piece by piece, every aspect of the play comes together, engineered by the students, for the students.
Every year, the theater department puts together a student-led production to compete in the Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild (METG) States Festival. Eight schools participate in the festival, some but not all of them are student-led productions like Brookline’s. The festival consists of multiple rounds of judging, with new judges every round, until eventually, one school leaves victorious. Brookline advanced through the preliminary rounds, taking home six awards. The States production is a unique drama opportunity at the high school, allowing students to learn important collaboration skills while putting their creativity on display.
While the play is student-led, its writers are assisted by two adult directors, high school drama teacher Mark Vanderzee and retired drama teacher Mary Mastandrea. Together, the cast and crew wrote a 40-minute piece using a prompt given by the directors: “Going up”.
This year, the task was to create an allegory involving non-human characters. The cast and crew have decided to perform about birds unable to fly, shocked to learn their ancestors were once able to. Convinced to learn to fly, a team of birds goes through a series of goofy adventures, going as far as kidnapping and threatening a passing bee to learn the secret behind its flight.
Senior and crew member Chloe Clark said she finds States unlike any of the other productions she has been a part of, and this incredibly unique theater experience has taught her a lot about theater.
“I’ve learned how crucial collaboration can be to art,” Clark said. “Also just how fun live theater can be. Both seeing our show and eight other high school productions every year is really cool.”
Each day at rehearsal, Vanderzee and Mastandrea begin by previewing the section of the play they will be focusing on. The cast then splits into groups, each writing their own version of a particular set of scenes. After presenting their work to the full cast, the directors choose aspects of each group’s work to create a cohesive draft.
Considering the importance of group dynamics in a student-led production, senior and cast member Rafay Ali said he believes this group is built to work well together.
“It’s a really big mix of grades,” Ali said. “That provides a nice diversity and perspective and vibe from each different type of person.”
On top of co-directing the States production for around 20 years, Vanderzee has been a part of a wide range of theater extracurriculars. However, Vanderzee said he believes that the States performance is unique in the amount of creativity it gives its students.
“One of the things that I think is really unique about this process is that all of the students are involved in all of the elements,” Vanderzee said. “We have our props person, sound person, costume person and lighting person. They’re all students who are responsible for those things, ultimately.”
While Vanderzee acknowledges the difficulties of the States production, he said he has immense confidence in this group in particular.
“It’s not easy, but it’s so much fun and so rewarding to see the students own the work,” Vanderzee said. “[We have a] super sweet group of kids who are really invested in the development of the story and tackling some interesting and complicated intellectual ideas and concepts.”
