It came down to time.
In February, dozens of acting students in Natalee Fera's class at Pinetree secondary were part in her Treehouse Theatre mega-hit Grease!
Two months later, three of them were cast of the inaugural production of The Bullying Games, a play based on real-life experiences in the Coquitlam school district that debuted at the Terry Fox Theatre.
So, when it came down to their final public performance for the academic year, Fera said her 22 senior acting students had had enough of big drama. And instead of offering their planned show of The Crucible, they ditched it for something a little more light-hearted.
In one month, they buckled down and studied the workings of The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!), a musical structured in five acts, set in the style of a parody that is based on a single narrative.
For the Coquitlam school, its plot would revolve around a love triangle told - of course - five different ways:
Office romantic comedy;
Greek mythology;
Teen drama (à la Mean Girls);
Film noir;
and Star Wars.
Producing 5 For 1 Theatre - as they have called their original piece - rather than going through the motions of presenting the 1953 play by Arthur Miller "wasn't necessarily easier because we had to write and workshop it in four weeks," Fera said during a group session last Friday.
There were also a lot of details that had to be figured out quickly, too. Half the costumes had to be rented, the props needed to be organized and the technical mechanics had to be fine-tuned.
Seeing it to the end for Thursday night's live show "has been a really nice group effort and I feel like it's something that we're going to look back at and be proud of," Fera said.
Tickets for 5 For 1 Theatre are $5 and available at the door (3000 Pinewood Ave., Coquitlam) on Thursday at 7 p.m. The school's improv team will also perform.For more information, call the school at 604-464-2513.
Greek at Heritage
Heritage Woods secondary's Acting 11/12 class will this weekend present Metamorphoses, a stage adaptation of Ovid's classic poem of the same name.
Written by Mary Zimmerman, the play touches of the themes of "learning, growing up, death, sorrow and love in the form of various ancient Greek legends," said Shanda Walters, the theatre teacher at the Port Moody school.
Tickets for the show on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. are $5 at the door (1300 David Ave.). Call 604-461-8679.
