The Franklin High School drama club has moved on to the semi-finals at a drama festival with their play Rebel Without A Cause.
The Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild holds a festival for high school plays every year, and this year it was held at Attleboro High School on Saturday, Feb. 28. During the festival, Franklin High School’s drama club was chosen along with three other schools to move on to the semifinal round.
Rebel Without A Cause was chosen to move on out of seven other Massachusetts high school plays. The judges of the festival made their choices on who would move on based on acting, directing and technical choices.
Riley Halliday, a sophomore who was in charge of controlling the lights for the play, believes that the the judges chose Franklin High to move on to semi-finals because “they brought their all” and the cast had a lot of adrenaline during the performance.
Rebel Without a Cause is set in the 1950’s and it focuses on a boy who comes to a new town and becomes enthralled in trouble. Parker Halliday, a sophomore who initially joined the drama club because she loves theater, describes the play as “action-packed” and “intense.”
When the cast and crew first found out that they had moved on, Kalen Hughes, a junior in drama club who plays the character Mrs. Hannington, describes the general reaction of the cast and crew as “shocked” and “excited.”
The judges also give advice for future rehearsals and performances. They told Franklin High that they needed to work on their costumes to make them more cohesive to the time period the play is set in.
At the semifinals, Franklin High will compete against different schools than the ones they competed against before. The semifinals will be held at Leominster High School on Saturday, March 14.