It’s Showtime on Stage at North and Roosevelt
North High School presents “The Outsiders” this weekend.
Ah, the season of tennis rackets, track spikes and spring plays is here at last. For the first two, the competition this time of year can include cold, wind and the occasional snow flake.
Fortunately for the thespians theirs is an indoor enterprise, even if the production is The Outsiders, the story North High School is telling this weekend.
It’s one built around that tendency in our human natures to emphasize divisive differences instead of deeper but less obvious common denominators. The context is a bygone era but a life stage that hasn’t changed much from then to now.
“Many of the kids in the cast are familiar with the story from reading the novel the play’s based on,” according to North Drama Director, Mark Rixner. “It’s a good, dramatic production they’re anxious to take on.”
Yesterday the show got on the road with a matinee performance right after school in the North High auditorium. Other show times are tonight and tomorrow night at 7:30 and Sunday afternoon at 2:00. Tickets are $7 for adults and $5 for students.
The cast is a veteran and talented one that includes speech all-staters like Forrest Mathison and Hatte Kelly. And Bao Luong and Leah Waughtal, both seniors, went straight from their characters of Ponyboy and Sandy to the 2nd annual Teen Poetry Slam downtown at the Temple for Performing Arts last night where they both made the team of six that will represent DMPS this summer at the Brave New Voices Youth Poetry Festival in Philadelphia. Other team members selected are Elhondra Brazzle, a freshman from East; Susan Stacy, a junior from Hoover; Julio Delgadillo, a freshman from North; and Russhaun Johnson, a sophomore from North.
Also showing this weekend in DMPS theaterland is the C.S. Lewis children’s classic, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at the Roosevelt High School auditorium. Show times there are tonight at 7:30 and tomorrow afternoon at 3:00 for a magical tale that combines the talents of some 70 students, all of whom agree that “This must be a simply enormous wardrobe.” All tickets are $5.
The show, it goes on!
