Remember those stories told as children or recounted tales whispered around a campfire? Beyond the Page Theatre Company of West Potomac High School proudly presents Urban Legends, a student collectively written original piece. Urban Legends is presented as part of the 2013 Capital Fringe Festival, a program of the Washington, D.C. non-profit Capital Fringe.
Upon learning of the Fringe Festival, the students at West Potomac High School were eager to take part. The students came together to write six original short plays based upon known legends including, “The Devil’s Tower,” “Late for Finals,’” “Mass Murder on Campus,” “The Off-Color Professor,” “Trapped by Their Seatbelts,” and “The Cursed Scarab.” Theatre classes ranging from beginning Theatre Arts 1 to the advanced Theatre Arts 3/4 worked on researching, writing, editing, and fine tuning the stories until they had actual plays on their hands. Senior Dan Evans decided to take on an additional leadership role for Urban Legends saying, “I was in charge of writing narration and I blocked two of the scenes. It was a joy to work with all my friends and even more fun to try my hand at a leadership position. It took a lot of work and our free time to put this together. I just hope everyone likes it!” When asked about her experience with creating a brand new show and originating various roles Junior Emma Norville said, “It was cool how we only had a short amount of time to rehearse and we were able to take liberties with our characters and define them how we want.”
The theatre department at West Potomac wasn’t always this efficient though. A few short years ago the theatre department at West Potomac was in shambles. Things had gotten so bad that there wasn’t even a theatre teacher at the school. The students and booster parents were forced to hire outside directors for the shows. Senior Peter Serle had this to say about the time before Clark arrived, “Freshman year was turbulent. Our teacher left partway through the year, so we had the booster parents running the program, trying to find a suitable replacement. If it wasn’t for a great production of Bye Bye Birdie near the end of the year, we likely wouldn’t have had the money to hire someone as great as Mr. Clark.” The only thing that kept the students coming back was their love for theatre.
In the fall of 2011 West Potomac was met with the man who would go on to change the face of theatre, Philip Clark. Clark entered the school only to discover how broken the department truly was. Over the course of his last two years at the school, Clark has not only restored the program but raised it to a new high as the 2013 Spring musical, Young Frankenstein was nominated for Best Musical as part of the Cappies program which recognizes high school theatre. Due to his unending dedication and expansion of the theatre department and classes by 35%, Clark has been named the new Team Instructional Leader of the Fine and Performing Arts by his colleagues and the administration.
So come out and see Urban Legends presented by the Beyond the Page Theatre Company of West Potomac High School at the 2013 Capital Fringe Festival and like us on Facebook.
PERFORMANCES
July 12 – 8:15 pm
July 14 – 6:30 pm
July 20 – 8:00 pm
July 24 – 8:30 pm
July 28 – 2:15 pm
PURCHASE TICKETS HERE.
