The Conifer High School theatre class recently performed their semester play, called You’re Driving Me Crazy. The show was composed of four comedic chunks with different characters and storylines, all ending that storyline with the phrase, “you’re driving me crazy!”

“The beginning of the semester for me was a lot of blocking (figuring out where actors need to be in relation to each other and set on stage), helping people connect, and going over the show,” student director Maddy Fletcher said, “It was important to me that before we really start the show everyone is comfortable with each other.”

People in the cast and tech crew made the set, memorized lines, practiced the show, and performed, using only the available class time. This can make for a good introduction to theatre, in tech or on stage, while not taking a lot or any outside-of-school time for people who have sports or jobs.

“At the middle of the semester, I wasn’t really cramming yet or having to get things together quickly since I wasn’t that concerned yet. It was the time where I was more developing my characters and trying to get to know the show and get things together based on that,” sophomore Bird Cassidy said.

There were actors who had multiple characters during the show since it had different chunks with different stories; Cassidy played both a driving instructor at one point and a frustrated student. Some students also had just tech roles, making sets or writing ideas for the characters’ costumes.

“Getting set and costumes together took a lot of time out of our actual rehearsal process since we were figuring out that instead of actually practicing and practicing with the costumes and set after,” Cassidy said, “We had a lot of the people in the tech class doing it, but then in our actual performance, we only had two tech people which was difficult. The actors had to move the set.”

A system like this can make students feel better about the time commitment needed for theatre while giving them a good look into things, even the chaos that comes with getting ready and the last effort put into a show or performance before it happens.

“I felt pretty rushed at the end and like we didn’t get to run through it very much, and suddenly it was two weeks before the performance and we were all like ‘oh, this is happening,’ and had to get sets and costumes together. I’d also been finishing shows for another performance I was in,” sophomore Hannah Boeding said, “But after the show and the final push and everything, I feel good about it. We did well.”