Raising the Curtains: Redwood’s One-Acts Performances

By Natalie Enriquez and Piper Figallo

Drama will be putting on its One-Acts show May 1-4th in the Rotary Theater at 7 pm. The One-Acts are an end-of-year recital that displays all of the skills and talent that drama students have learned during their time of taking Mrs. Galvan’s Drama classes.

Galvan gives insight on how the One-Acts come together, and what it takes to put on a great performance. 

This upcoming show differs from past performances such as the play and musical because it counts for class credit. Galvan says, “One-Acts are co-curricular so everybody from drama 1 through all the way to drama 4 performs”

She adds, “Because this is considered their final, drama 3, which you can take twice so you would be in drama 4, that curriculum is actually production and they are supposed to learn how to put on a show, not just acting”

The One-Acts contrast with the previous performances such as Mean Girls, Alice in Wonderland, and 30 Reasons, because instead of Galvan leading the show, the One-Acts are created by the students, Galvan says, “It’s so cool to watch the audience’s reaction of something that the students directed. Or that the students wrote and then directed…. they come backstage and go ‘Mrs. Galvan, they laughed!’”

Not only do students have to perform in the One-Acts show, but they have to produce and direct it. It is a team effort to put on the show, and Drama students get to decide things such as the cast, who the directors will be, and which One-Acts will be displayed in the show. 

This performance is student-led, and they learn all of the things Galvan taught them over the years to create the show.

Advanced drama students select casting directors, and then a casting director table and stage managers are all selected from that class.

This year there were 127 scripts turned in which the casting team had to look over and make sure they were acceptable for the show. It takes a couple of weeks for the students to go through websites to get plays from, and they look for big One-Acts that can be performed in the show. The rest of the material is called secondaries because they are smaller, and are written by students. The One-Acts have to have at least two characters and be at least two minutes long

Putting on a show is not easy. It takes a lot of time and effort from Drama students to make sure everything is perfect for the performance.

Galvan says, “Every script gets read at least 3 times, if not 4 or 5 times to make sure this is material we want to do. Then it’s, do we have enough material to make a 2-hour show? Or do we have too much and we need to cut some stuff.”

She goes on to say, “We are in that process right now, everyone is rehearsing our scripts. Big ones have been chosen, small ones have been chosen, everybody’s memorizing, everybody’s getting blocking done and all of that.”

Galvan highlights a specific One-Act that is about ADHD and how students process it. Galvan says, “All these voices are telling them all of the things that they should be doing, or shouldn’t be doing.”

Galvan also shines a light on one that mentions family life and how some kids are not supported at home, but they are at school with their group of friends.

Although there are very deep and meaningful One-Acts, Galvan says, “A lot of time the One-Acts, especially for the advanced drama kids, because they deal with all kinds of material all the time, they want something that is just fun and silly and doesn’t have a good message.”

One of the One-Acts that are more on the sillier side is called Princess Party Smackdown. Gavan says, “It’s a Karen-type mom that has hired all these princess-type people to do a party for their daughter, but they hired them from different companies so these people haven’t necessarily worked together before. 

She adds, “There’s like a space monster character, and it’s just you get these silly things, and it’s something that is not quite so serious, but you have to take it seriously to put it on and make it funny.”

Another One-Act that is more highlighted is the Hallmarks of Horror. Galvan says, “It is basically all the stupid things that happen in horror movies. For example, it’s like the teenage girl leaves the party to go check on the noise in the shed by herself, and then she gets killed.”

“There’s one that is a serious one that’s not really necessarily relevant to social events or anything that’s, right now, topics. But it’s very existential.” This One-Act that Galvan describes is called ‘Silence on Barber Street’ and is about a circus ringmaster and the characters in the scene, we don’t know if they’re dead or alive. This is based on the true events of July 1944. There was a fire at Ringland Brothers Barnum and Bailey’s Circus in Hartford Connecticut, it was set by one of the circus performers. He had a horrible childhood and he ended up being an arsonist, and hundreds of people died. 

“There are a couple of characters in that, that do make a, if you want to say a political statement. There’s some racial stuff in there of, there’s one family that, they would have survived if the white family hadn’t pushed them out of the way.” Galvan says.

During the performance, a character has a little speech stating about a fire or a tragedy that is a great equalizer. It doesn’t matter who you are, or what color your skin is. It doesn’t matter.

They [the students] found it and said ‘We want to do this’ and Galvan told them ‘This is like really deep deep guys.’ 

This One-Act is based on and tells the stories of the people who died and the people who survived. When the students first read it they didn’t know it was based on a real thing, and then they started reading it and then they would say, ‘Mrs. Galvn there was really a fire on July 6, 1944, in Hartford Connecticut’ and she would tell them, ‘Yeah guys it’s based on the real events that happened.’ 

Even though this One-Act is a little dark, it is still very cool and interesting to the Drama students. They chose to do this one because they don’t get to do stuff like this. The One-Acts are an opportunity for them to do things that they don’t normally do on a regular basis.

The One-Acts are read by her just to approve and make sure that there is nothing in there that they can’t do in High School. The students are the ones who do it all. She has TA’s for her Drama 1 classes so they are the directors for the Drama 1’s. 

Galvan says, “There could be stuff that I haven’t even seen yet, that is going to be phenomenal and everybody is going to love.”

In order to put on a One-Act show, there has to be teamwork within drama.

Galvan says,“I am really excited for this year. We have a group of Drama 3 and 4’s that really work together well.”

Galvan elaborates that everyone works together to figure out who does certain tasks such as lights, who manages certain scenes, and who is doing costumes.

Galvan highlights her appreciation for her drama classes and says, “When I was just kind of sitting back and watching how everything was running, it was very exciting.”

She adds, “I don’t have to be here. If I have a sub, it’s still going to run and that’s super exciting as a teacher to know in your heart and soul that if I’m not there things can keep moving ahead.”

“It’s a very collaborative process, which makes me excited. I like watching opening night, I like watching the shows each night and seeing what they have done.”

Mrs. Galvan

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