Unveiling the Play: A Peek into “30 Reasons Not to Be in a Play”

This school year, Redwood High School has two fall plays coming up. One being Alice in Wonderland, the other being 30 Reasons Not to be in a Play. Everyone knows Alice in Wonderland, but not many people know the second play. What’s the play about? What audience is it directed towards? 

By: Natalie Enriquez

30 Reasons Not To Be In a Play is about the ridiculous horrors of being in a play. Stacy Galvan, the Theater teacher at Redwood, says, “It is things that all of us have thought about from elementary school through high school of being involved in a show.”

It is just a total laugh fest from beginning to end and it is really fun. This play was actually done before about ten to twelve years ago.

A ridiculous situation that is going to be in the play, Galvan says, is “There’s a whole scene about being in the play in second grade and you have to be a tree and you fall down because you can’t see, but the teacher doesn’t care, she keeps going, and so you’re never going to do it again.”

“It’s all those weird things that happen that we get embarrassed about.” The play has the kind of stuff that is relatable. Anything that you can kind of go “Yep that happened to me” or “Yep that’s exactly why I’m not on stage.” A lot of students could relate to this.

“At first, it was going to double everything and it was going to take rehearsal time and cut it in half because we only have so many rehearsals between now and when the play is, which is in November. We were going to figure out that time frame and how are we going to piece in two full shows in the same amount of time.” Galvan says.

To lighten the workload, a Redwood Ranger who graduated in 2023, Nathaniel Crabtree, was hired to help direct 30 Reasons Why Not to Be in a Play. Since this is the first time that Crabtree is directing a play as the adult in the room, he and Galvan sometimes switch which play they are working on so they can make sure everything is running smoothly.

The only workload that having to fall plays has increased for Galvan is that she has to teach somebody how to direct, but it wouldn’t be such a big problem since Grabtree had directed a lot last year.

He is familiar with peer directing being a senior and helping the freshman and sophmores, but being the actual adult in the room is something he hasn’t done yet.

Even with that, it’s not much of a workload for Galvan. She has worked with him for four years and he knows her, so he can ask her questions since he is not embarrassed to, and she is not embarrassed to tell him “Dude what are you doing?” So they work together really well.

 Bringing Crabtree on as co-director allows Galvan to do the rehearsals for both plays at the same time. “The way my schedule is in the fall, adding rehearsals was going to be nearly impossible. It also eliminates students when you add rehearsals. Students who might be in sports, might be in ASB, might be in journalism, might be in yearbook, might be in all of these other activities that take up a lot of time, we would lose those kids and they wouldn’t have an opportunity to participate.”

“What I get most excited about is watching any of the students, but especially this year, the newer students, the freshman and the sophomores who haven’t done anything like this, watching them go from just reading lines and trying to memorize lines, to becoming a character,” Galvan says.

Being able to become a character and not just take your personality and make it the character, but include yourself in becoming the character is what acting is all about.

The fall play is a little bit later than it normally is. The plays usually take place in the beginning/middle of October, and it would not take place till the first of November. Students who are involved in the plays, a lot of them will be involved in the musical too, and those are going to overlap this year. 

Auditions for the musical are in October and since the plays won’t perform until November they are going to have an overlap of kids trying to do the play rehearsal and try to do the musical rehearsal, plus all these other things that they are involved in. 

A lot of tired students and a lot of tired teachers will be seen for two weeks with the musical and play rehearsals going on, but also a lot of fun will be seen. Galvan says, “We have fun when we’re working.”

“Our schedule for the theaters for the plays and stuff are set three years in advance. We don’t have a choice. We can finagle a little bit, but not really.” 

Rehearsals take place in the theater room and Mr. Blair’s room, and sometimes the room across from the theater room since there are so many of them. Mondays and Thursdays from 6-8:30 pm.

The dates for the show are November 1, 2, 3, and 4. 30 Reasons will perform the Wednesday, the first, and on the fourth at the Matina on the Saturday. That’s when they’ll perform, and then Alice In Wonderland will perform the other three nights at Rotary, 7 o’clock, tickets will be available on their website when they get it up.

Tags: 30 Reasons, 30 Reasons Not to be in a Play, arts, entertainment, fall play, play, rangers, Redwood, redwood gigantea, redwood high school, redwood journalism, redwood rangers, rhs, rotary theater, theater, visalia ca