The curtains are drawn, students enter the stage, and the blinding lights shine on their faces. The actors put on their costumes, rack their minds for their well-rehearsed lines, and of course, feed off the anticipation of the audience behind the ominous curtain of darkness.
For their latest production, theater department students worked to bring “The Brothers Grimm” to the mainstage on Oct. 3 and both students and theater teacher, Eric Fredrickson worked tirelessly to present the school with the best show they could deliver.
“I’ve never worked on this play before, I saw it last year at the States Festival in Orlando,” Fredrickson said. “I thought it would be great teaching material too because of the significance of the stories, due to it being based on the Brothers Grimm stories, which are different from the Disney version of the stories.”
The Brothers Grimm is a comedic tale consisting of 209 stories that are dark and twisted versions of fairy tales. A group of actors come together in an attempt to retell these stories. The main characters, two narrators, lead the audience members and weave them through these stories.
Confining 209 tales into a 45-minute performance presented a time-crunch obstacle for the actors. The challenge was a welcome opportunity to refine their acting skills.
“Comedy is all about timing, tempo, and quick-witted banter,” Fredrickson said. “It’s all about finding the timing of the play, and if they can find the timing and the tempo, the play should also be entertaining as well.”
In this play, there are many fantastical roles, such as witches and princesses, that students have never portrayed before. The goal of the production at the end of the quarter was to have achieved the ability to get out of their comfort zones.
“Something that I’ve noticed that I do a lot is that I hold back, and I don’t make strong acting choices because I get scared. Mr. Fredrickson really helps me express myself and not hold back,” Stella Tadeo, seventh-grade theater major said.
When it came to performing in the Main Stage Theater for the first time, students made sure that they knew their lines and applied their corrections in order for everything to go according to plan.
“I’m really excited because you only get to go to the Main Stage Theater a couple of times here at Bak, and I’m really overjoyed and a little bit scared of the whole thing,” Briella Wolle, seventh-grade theatre major said. “The [Main Stage Theater] is filled and it’s really busy.”
Fredrickson made sure his students were prepared and confident before presenting any piece through constant rehearsing and exercise.
“We break off and work on different parts of the play, and I give them various tasks such as critiques on the performance and doing their rehearsal logs about what happens in rehearsal every day,” Fredrickson said. “They’re constantly drilling their lines whenever they’re not on stage and doing character analysis and helping each other.”
This experience has helped students to grow and become more creative using rehearsal logs to set goals and record what they did during the class, helping to prepare them for upcoming performances so they can bring the stage to life.
“Mr. Fredrickson is an overall great director and has really helped me to improve my pronunciation,” Wolle said. “ I think this is a really great show because all the actors have been working so hard to piece it together. I hope that everyone enjoys watching it as much as we did working and performing it.”
