To direct or not to direct, that is the question. After experiencing first-hand the difficulty of directing and high school theater in general, I aim to answer this question and maybe shed a little light on the subject.

Work. It’s a whole lot of work. As director I was responsible for the entire play and every little bit that goes into it. Thankfully, I shared this responsibility with senior and friend, Michael Porras, who was just as excited to take on the responsibility as I was. “Directing at the end of the day was like drawing wicked cards after a dreadful turn in a board game,” said Porras, “it made everything better.” We stayed late everyday with our stable of actors to get the play as ready as possible, since there was always something working against us.

We worked months on the play every day after school. Between AP classes, my wrestling and his swimming, we had our work cut out for us as the play loomed ever closer to its opening night. It was an uphill battle, but it wasn’t overwhelming all the time. On a daily basis, it could be anything, from lights and sound, to actors and props. In fact, the lights and sound queues were put together the last week and weren’t really ready on the first night. Actors posed problems as well, from missing rehearsals, which led to us not being able to rehearse the day before opening night, to quitting up until the week before the play, giving people who already had parts even more to worry about. In fact, Michael and I had to take on various roles to keep the play going which resulted in me playing the Sea Captain and Unicorn, while he played the Inmate and Frankenstein.

As they say, “The show must go on,” and against all the problems that come with theater, we were able to open to a packed house, nearly packed house, and then decently filled house respectively, over our three day run; something that hasn’t happened at Alisal in a long time due to the tremendous amount of effort it takes to put one on. It’s never been impossible, just difficult. Our play was the first to go up at Alisal for quite some time, the last attempt being last year’s, “Salem.”

It wasn’t all black clouds and work though, it was honestly one of the most enjoyable projects I’ve ever worked on. The cast and crew were an amazing group of people, and I am glad to have been able to work with them. Without them we wouldn’t have a show (literally) and I don’t know if I would have kept at it. From the epic accent battles between Dracula and The Sea Captain in the dressing room, to the intense games of Ninja under the strobe light to the sound of Mortal Kombat, we had some great times on the stage. The excitement of the performance, was the highlight, “Five Minute High Five!” was a thing every night where I would run around the back of the stage high fiving actors whom would soon be on the stage, some for the first time. Laughter, laughter would be the thing I remember most from the performance as the sound calmed nerves and really made the labor worth it. The tension was there up until your moment on the stage then, well, the play must go on.