By Babiha Kaur, Digital Editor
Open to all high school students taking theater classes in Howard County, the voluntary field trip to the HCC Theater Festival featured a variety of workshops and activities that students could attend in order to learn about multiple aspects of theater arts.
Although the field trip was optional, many students from River Hill’s theater department chose to attend. Freshman Alexis Pages decided to go on the field trip because she “thought it would be a nice opportunity to try some new things.” Freshman Penny Tofigh describes her motivation to attend the trip as well, stating, “I thought it would be a really good experience for me, as someone who is interested in theater, to learn more and be around that kind of area and those people.”
The start of the festival featured a performance from All County Improv, Howard County’s improvisation troupe consisting of high school students. The group played a variety of improv games to entertain the audience. Junior Abby Heineman reflects on the show, stating, “I really liked the beginning, the ACI performance. [It] was really cool.”
Students greatly enjoyed their chosen workshops. Each student was able to attend three classes, each featuring a different aspect of theater. The workshops included Improvisation, Jazz/Ballet, Musical Theatre Song, Musical Theatre Dance, Unarmed Stage Combat, Knife Stage Combat, Devising, Shakespeare Acting, Stage Makeup, Sword Fighting, Dialects, Puppetry, and others. Alexis attended the Dialects workshop, describing, “We went over how people with a New York accent hold their faces, the different mouth movements that help them achieve the different sounds, how they pronounce different consonants and vowels, and the different parts that give it the general sounds.” Alexis enjoyed this workshop not only because it was entertaining, but also because of how informative it was. She expands, “One of the things we talked about is it’s really hard to do a French accent in English because in the French language, a lot of the sounds that we use don’t really exist in normal conversations. It was cool.” This workshop was junior Abby Heineman’s personal favorite because she has “always liked Newsies, so it was fun being able to learn some new techniques and everything.” Newsies is a musical about a ragged band and is set in New York.
Another popular workshop that students attended was Stage Makeup. In this class, students observed the instructor demonstrating how to achieve flesh-like wounds and elderly looks on an actor’s face. For Penny, this was the most interesting workshop because “the instructor was kind of funny, and he knew a lot, and I feel like it’s something I haven’t really learned a lot about,” she explained. Additionally, Alexis shares, “It was really cool to watch [the instructor] do it. He showed us how he uses cotton, latex, and all these different things to help achieve the look.”
Perhaps the most entertaining type of workshop for students were those that taught stage combat. Alexis enjoyed the Knife Combat workshop the most, describing, “Getting to do something a little more intense and with props was very interesting.” This workshop taught students how actors use props to mimic fighting, along with the techniques and skills needed to do it safely. Alexis expands, “It’s kind of cool, because even if the actor in the fight scene were to forget which way to dodge, the actor that is attacking would have little cues to show them which direction to go. It was really cool to see all the things that go into it and interact with other people. We played a lot of fun games with knives. It was so fun; I had a blast.”
Theater arts is special to many students for a variety of reasons. Abby comments, “I always like being on stage and singing especially, so the musical theater part is a lot of fun for me. Getting constructive criticism back for how I can improve is really important to me because I want to be able to learn how to be a better actress.” Although theater can be fun, it can also be stimulating to the brain and body. Alexis shares, “I think theater can be both physically and intellectually challenging, because while you have to learn all the dances [and] blocking, you have to understand what’s happening in a story and how to get that message across. It’s just so many things put into one. It’s singing, it’s dancing, it’s acting, it’s fighting, it’s just really cool.”
The HCC Theater Festival was an enjoyable, educational experience for those that attended. Alexis concludes, “I thought it was really fun, really well organized, it was easy to find my way around, all the workshops were fun, [and] it was overall a good experience.”