Sitting in her room on the hardwood flooring, staring up at the theater posters on her blue and green wall, sophomore Lexi Schmitz deals with what transgressed earlier in the day. She thinks about what she would have done differently if she could start the process over again. Schmitz, along with junior Amy Leopold, regret not putting in more time with rehearsals.
Schmitz is one of 12 students attempting to pull off West Fargo Highs’ first-ever student-led production. While the production has been pushed back until spring due to scheduling conflicts, Schmitz and Leopold are sure that with the added time to practice the play will be a highly anticipated production throughout the school.
“It was a bit annoying at times because people aren’t going to give me the same respect that they give Theater Director Adam] Pankow,” Schmitz said. “It took a long time for people to start paying attention like normal meetings.”
The group, now realizing what it takes to pull off a production, is ready to commit and make it happen. The play will be paired with Pankow’s One Act play and Leopold and Schmitz are confident that the two plays will draw another impressive crowd to the theater of West Fargo.
“There just wasn’t enough time for all of us to put on a show that we could be really proud of,” Leopold said. “Or that was a true measure of our abilities.”
With the play, “Outside the Box,” being a new experience for everyone involved, Schmitz and Leopold wanted to make sure that the people who signed on would commit and give their all.
“Because this is our first time doing it, we picked people who normally do theater things,” Schmitz said. “But as we go on we want to hold auditions for people.”
With only 12 roles to fill, Leopold said that it was relatively easy giving out the roles and once on cast, the new members each gave $10 to cover the resources the production would need to pull off this unique production. The original intention of this play was for students to come together and put on a full two act production, but the outcome is seaming to be a little more than the average production.
“We started out because Pankow does a lot of musicals and people love theater and they love acting but [they say] ‘I can’t dance, I can’t sing… I’m scared of Pankow,’’ Schmitz said. “We wanted to try and bring in other people, not just a part of the theater department, to be a part of it.”
For some people, finding the right play can take a long time and sometimes it may not even happen. The day that Leopold and Schmitz decided to run with their idea they ran straight to Google and found their play.
“We emailed the author of it and he said, ‘Oh yeah sure, go ahead. And instead of doing a fee for the script, just send me pictures of what you guys are doing and you guys can have it,’’ Schmitz said.
Pankow, who is trying to allow the students to direct this play on their own, aims for everything that comes out of the West Fargo Theater department to be exceptional.
“I am fully supportive of a student-led production,” Pankow said. “This production is an excellent example of the kind of initiative that distinguishes between a good or an exceptional program. WFHS Theatre aims to be exceptional and this student production marks another positive way in which the department continues to grow from an artistic and educationally-minded purpose.”