On Oct. 26 at 7 p.m. Lake City Secondary is hosting the one-act play Smarty Pants, available to the public for one night only.
Smarty Pants is a short one-act play about a high achieving, academically stressed, high school senior who is placed into an advanced class to learn how to have fun again. Once there she finds the class as being little more than Kindergarten and has to learn how to relax and go with the flow: skills she has forgotten.
Marilee Andres is the high school drama teacher for both of Lake City Secondary’s Campuses and is spearheading this production, put on by Grade 9 drama students. She chose Smarty Pants for its essential human truths about both school and life.
“This play just highlights how we lose (often) focus of what is important in life and get consumed with things that are actually not all that important,” Andres said.
Another reason she chose the production was the high number of non-gender specific roles. Andres likes to have many students acting on the stage as possible and Smarty Pants not only had this volume but also allowed her to pick a play that utilized her predominantly female cast.
“The students have worked really hard to learn their lines, for some of them this is their first time they’ve had to memorize lines,” Andres said. “They’ve worked really hard to try to understand their characters, showing them each as unique individuals with their own behaviours and ways of thinking.”
An additional challenge Andres feels her students have risen to meet is their stage business. A prop-heavy show, Smarty Pants requires her students to physically act and perform in addition to memorizing lines, adding a whole new dimension to the production.
Finally, Andres has had to make her cast comfortable performing in two different venues, the cafeteria in Columneetza and the stage in the main campus. Most of the plays run will be available only to fellow students and teachers, with the cast performing in six shows over the course of the week.
“Drama is really all about showing the human condition and whether it’s a high school or professional performance, we all have the same human condition,” Andres said. “I think that’s one good reason to come out, we get to experience the human condition together and look at different ways we can approach life. I love drama and simply want to spread the word of what it can do for people.”
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While she feels her students are nervous going into their performances this week, she said anyone would be and as all these students chose to take her elective, there is a good deal of excitement as well.
“I am excited for them and I think, when push comes to shove, they’re going to be on the ball,” Andres said.
This excitement is felt by the show’s lead, Cassidy Wight, portraying the studious Dallas, who is taking drama on top of band class for the entire semester. Wight has always been interested in acting and jumped at the opportunity to get some real-world experience in it.
According to Wight, they got their scripts three weeks ago, which wasn’t much time to get off-book by, but something they’ve mostly managed.
“It’s a lot of fun. Memorizing lines is a lot of work, especially for Dallas, she has so many advanced words that a lot of people, including me, don’t understand,” Wight said.
Wight said she’s enjoyed being able to play such a dynamic character, however. As she’s the main character of the one-act, Wight undergoes the most growth throughout the play, requiring an extra level of nuance.
“It’s a lot of responsibility and can be kind of stressful but so long as you understand what your character is thinking, it’s easy to come up with the lines your character would say,” Wight said.
To her, Smarty Pants is a play about the importance of keeping your inner kid alive inside of you as you grow older. The stress of school and later the professional world can cause many to not take time for themselves and she feels that attending this play will help put things in perspective while relieving some of that stress.
For Wight, drama class has been that and she intends to take it again when she gets the chance.
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