Students direct and star in short performances for this fall tradition
Dramafest, the weeklong festival of student produced and directed short plays, is coming up soon.
The tradition is now in its 68th year. Dramafest will be running eight shows, two per day from Monday, November 13 to Thursday, November 16.
Shows will be at 4:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, and at 2:45 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday.
Theater Directors Benjamin “Stu” Stuart and Katie Greve oversee the production processes of Dramafest, helping student-directors select the plays, and providing rehearsal feedback, along with ensuring deadlines are being met.
Though Stuart and Greve are involved to ensure that Dramafest runs smoothly, costume and set designing duties fall on students in Theater Tech and Costuming classes. Production duties fall on student-directors, such as Mimi Wang ‘24.
Wang, co-director of Butterflies and Men, explained her show is about, “two high school girls navigating through their high school life with different challenges, and it’s kind of cool. It’s like two parallel worlds where they eventually bump into each other, and something magical happens.”
Sydney Rutter, playwright of Essential Workers gave insight into the playwriting process.
Now a sophomore at University of San Francisco, Rutter said that the play was born out of a brainstorming session with a friend, and that he had finished the script in a playwriting class during their final semester at RHS. The premise was to write a play about superheroes where no fights take place on stage.
Rutter said he was surprised to find out that Essential Workers was selected to be performed at Dramafest, and noted it was “kind of surreal” that his play would see the stage.
Tickets will be on sale at rhstheatre.net/dramafest and in person.
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