After a smashing success in the state’s competition, Green Hope High School’s theater program competed in Nationals last weekend. The theater four team traveled to Baltimore, MD where they performed with the state winners of nine other states in the southeast.
All ten groups participating in Nationals took a trip to participate in a two-day festival consisting of twenty shows. The theater teacher and director, Mr. Peter Comperatore, said, “[The festival] contains some of the best high school theater has to offer.” On the trip, the theater four team immersed themselves in the experience by performing and watching shows at the historic Lyric Theater in Baltimore. Students participated in college auditions and also had the opportunity to take part in professional workshops as well as listen to keynote speeches from professionals in the theater industry.
Dan Li (‘25), playing the lead role of Anon in the performance, reflected on the hard work he and his team put in. He shared the key ways he felt why the Green Hope theater team had progressed to Nationals, and said, “The team was good at committing to our characters and being authentic with our research, telling the story in a unique way with technical elements, and having an extremely relevant play that connected with audiences.”
Another important role in the performance was played by Cali Glenn (‘25), a clueless, ignorant blonde girl, elaborated, saying, “I think our ensemble has just built so much trust with each other and our director, and have created a really strong connection to the piece itself. Because of this, we always put our all into every performance because we want to do it justice as it so much deserves. We also just have a really talented director who was able to bring his beautiful visions to life.”
Green Hope Theater performed Anonymous again at Nationals and won various honours. Li and Bianca Salve (‘25) received acting awards as part of the “All Star Cast” that highlights the best performances of the festival. Elliott Bratcher (‘25) and Amelia Gasper (‘25) were given the “Best Sound Design” award. No placements were given.
Glenn shared other successes from their performance outside of the awards the team earned itself, “Through the lens of theater, audiences and performers alike can come together in appreciation of what so many people have to go through. We cherish these stories as we continue to push for a better future for people around the world.”
Li was happy with his award and performance at Nationals. He shared his journey through this experience participating in theater, “I enjoyed the character work, devising the different scenes, and traveling to competitions. I liked meeting other schools at the competitions and having fun with my classmates watching shows, eating, and performing.” Glenn shared her experience too, “We have done many enjoyable things in Theater, one is we got to make this play through a process called moment work, where you make cool scenes from random objects first, then add them into the context of the play itself that we were working on. It’s a super fun process that makes you really use your imagination. I also really enjoyed getting to become more educated about the harsh realities of refugees and the details of how hard they have to work just to live somewhere that can be considered safe. It’s something that should be more widely known and talked about.”
There were multiple valuable aspects to the theater experience and it took a whole team, from the theater four art students making the set and props to the student actors on stage.
