On October 30th, the drama department held their first radio theatre play on The Crucible. Despite COVID-19 restrictions and being unable to rehearse in-person, the students were able to make this audio production successful.
The Crucible is an eerie play set during the time of the Salem Witch Trials where women in the Puritan community would be accused of being witches, rejected by the strong religious court, and executed brutally. Many women and few men were executed under the suspicion that they were practicing witchcraft. The Crucible contains ideas of mid 20th century McCarthyism, illustrates the dangers of hive mentality, and touches upon the fear of what man does not understand.
The full cast of The Crucible contains David Cortez (12) as John Proctor, Meghan Kelly (12) as Abigail Williams, Madison Schoening (11) as Elizabeth Proctor, Erik Headley (11) as Reverend Hale and Thomas Putnam, Ben Garcia (11) as Judge Danforth, Trinity Cato-Cristales (11) as Mary Warren, Lachlan MacLaren (9) as Reverend Parris, Gianluca Bettucchi (9) as Francis Nurse and John Cheever, Heather Galles (11) as the Narrator. The production team consisted of Shree Singh(10), Joseph Tom(12), Vivian Jiang(10), and Taylor Le(11).
Due to the pandemic, rehearsals and all preparation for the radio show had to be done online. Cortez noted that, “after school we would all hop on a Zoom [call], start off with some warm ups or ice breakers, then get to our script”. Kelly, who has been involved in many of Mills’s drama productions, described the process of rehearsing the script; “our early rehearsals involved pretty straightforward read throughs to get used to the lines, as well as some exercises to develop our use of voice and give us more impact”. Schoening then explained how the technical difficulties were taken into consideration while rehearsing; “we went on a Zoom call 4 days a week […] it took some getting used to, having to work through all the technical stuff, but once we got the ball moving, it was hard to stop. We would run the lines over and over developing our characters and getting notes from Mr. Hudelson and our alumni assistant director”. Headley specified that they “spent a week rehearsing 1 out of the 4 acts of the play to go through the lines and words and iron out tough sections and just get the general feel of the show. We then spent another two weeks recording the show, spending two days on each act.” “From the end of recording up until the premiere, our director, Mr. Hudelson, mixed and edited all of our recorded audio and our crew created an accompanying slide show (Cortez).”
It is hard enough to put on an in-person play, but with an audio only show, the difficulty is set at an even higher level. The cast members had to overcome some significant challenges to creatively and accurately act as their designated characters. Mr. Hudelson, the production’s director and drama teacher at Mills, agreed that it is more challenging to produce plays virtually, as there are also limitations with technology and much time is spent learning how to simply use it. However, this forced him as a teacher to learn very quickly and to make something powerful in a limited medium. He explained that, “a virtual production is never going to compete with a live production performed in front of a live audience. Nothing can capture the electricity and excitement of a live show, but for the meantime, this has to do.” Schoening, who has been involved in Mills’ drama productions since she was a freshman, saw this experience as a new and fun way to try something different; “it was so fun playing this part. It was new to me not being on stage, but it had its own challenges. I had to put all my energy into the voice, and I felt like the emotions of my fellow actors and I were turned up like 10 notches. It was easier in the way that I didn’t have to memorize lines and be on stage, but it was very hard mentally because all your energy is being put into your voice and articulation.” Similarly, Cortez thought acting in this production was quite difficult; “usually, I like to work with people in person because I can interact better with people that I can see in front of me. It was definitely tough, but we were able to pull off something great […] I personally love it when I have a live audience. Something that I pride myself on is reading my audience and interacting with them in any way I can. The Crucible would have been a bit difficult to do […] we didn’t have anything but our voices to tell a story.” Headley reflects, “it was considerably harder to draw out my emotions and feel in character while I was recording because we weren’t in a live setting with an audience to play off of and a period setting to interact with. It was also harder on me as an actor because I wasn’t able to connect with my cast mates and build relationships that in the long-run, make the performances better”.
The slideshow presented during the production’s official release was a joint effort between Mr. Hudelson and select students: Singh, Tom, Jiang, and Le. Mr. Hudelson looked for haunting images that could roughly mirror what was going on in the script and also sought to showcase some historical sketches and images from the McCarthy era. Shree indicated that the slides were, “a combination of dark and eerie feels to really capture The Crucible witch vibes; putting pictures of actual images from the play, and more ominous and dark images. We were going for a creepy feel when producing the slides, something that would definitely go along with the witch trials incorporated in the play.”
Mr. Hudelson chose the soundtrack music from some of his favorite films, including Midsommar and The Witch. He also used some powerful music from Coldplay’s latest album “Everyday Life.”
As far as publicity was concerned, Tom assisted with advertising the event to the Mills student body and parents. He detailed that he “was managing publicity for The Crucible, so I made The Crucible poster, and was in charge of creating promo videos and the visuals that went along with the play.”
Drama’s next production is going to be The Addams Family: Quarantine Concert Edition. It will be streamed and performed in front of a green screen. What rehearsals will look like remains to be seen, however, they are hopeful that they will get to put some of the elements together as a social distanced ensemble.
