Students find a sense of place in theater

They may have kicked off the year with knife fights, shootings, brawls and class conflict, but there are no outsiders in Bainbridge High School’s theater program.

Students find more than a few lines of dialogue or piece of set design in BHS theater. Despite portraying troubled youth on stage this fall, BHS students learned the value of teamwork, open-mindedness, commitment and leadership.

BHS theater presented “The Outsiders” for its fall 2024 production, the first drama the program has displayed in four years.

The story follows three orphan siblings, “Ponyboy,” “Sodapop” and “Dallas,” and their forays into class-related gang violence in Tulsa, OK during the 1960s. Working-class “greasers” and affluent “socials” run amok, and their violent clashes result in tragedies that muddy the youths’ sense of right and wrong in a society they feel has forsaken them.

Director D’Arcy Clements picked “The Outsiders” because she wanted to expose the students to a compelling, relatable play outside of the Shakespeare oeuvre, which they often encounter in their high school English curriculum. “Outsiders” struck a strong balance because the novel by S.E. Hinton that inspired the play is part of the school district’s seventh-grade curriculum.

It’s not often that the students get to flex their more serious acting muscles. The program only produces a drama every four years, Clements explained.

“We try to give them something they can sink their teeth into,” she said.

Students design the set and costumes for the play. Otter Cannon, technical director, said that while advisor Aimee Triana gave the crew the idea to make the sets in grayscale, most of the other design choices were up to the student team. “We have the opportunity to voice our ideas, and she teaches how to think through the script,” Cannon said. “I’d say I’m most proud of the lights — I programmed them all myself.”

For many students, it was the first time they have acted in a drama; for many more, it was their first time producing a play in general. This fall, BHS theater had a “huge group of newbies,” theater club co-president Lily Terp (Ponyboy) said. The material was challenging, but tackling it together granted them confidence — which is what BHS theater is all about.

“One thing that really drew me to the theater community was that even as a freshman, my ideas were taken into consideration,” Terp said. “In a mix of people who really know what they’re doing, and people who really don’t know what they’re doing, over time you learn how to be on a team and how to be a leader.”

Other theater club members agreed that collaboration is central to the program. The club is no-cut, meaning everyone who participates is given a role. For Peyton Wright (Dallas), joining the club was a refreshing change from sports, where he felt like “more of a cog than a person.”

“When I discovered theater, my humanity came back,” he said. “I have people who want to see me thrive.”

Tech crew member Becca Corns and actors Aiyanna Clark and CJ Tyler all shared a similar experience. Beyond stage production, the community and life skills they found within theater are unparalleled, they said, and they encouraged incoming theater students to explore their own strengths.

Clark realized that the idiosyncrasies that made her self-conscious in social settings became magnetic and dynamic on stage: “Trying to fit in was not the way to go.” Tyler found that the basic premise of improv work, communicating with “yes, and-” and “no, but-” statements, creates an inclusive and easygoing atmosphere in any environment. Corns joined the club expecting to fly under the radar and learn to build sets, but quickly discovered her voice — and a passion for sound design.

“Maybe who you are might change, but that’s a good thing,” Corns said.

Hinton wrote the “Outsiders” novel when she was 16, after observing her peers from both sides of the tracks struggling to connect with each other and with society in general.

“None of the events are taken from real life, but the rest — how kids think and live and feel — is for real,” Hinton wrote. “Cool people mean nothing to me — they’re living behind masks, and I’m always wondering, ‘Is there a real person underneath?’”

But BHS theater students are not caught in two worlds. Their place is very clear, Terp said. “Make good choices … if you surround yourself with good people, you know that your decisions will affect you for the rest of your life,” she said.

‘Greasers’ Ponyboy (Lily Terp, left), Johnny (Rel Eerkes, center) and Dallas (Peyton Wright) drive erratically.

‘Greaser’ Darry (Liam Hayes, left) and ‘soc’ Paul (Luke Rowe) duke it out during a rumble.

Technical director Otter Cannon (center right) and crew members Jasper Gustafson (left), Vija Gilvydis (rear left) and Becca Corns (right) demonstrate a practical effect with a rotating bedroom on the set built by BHS students for ‘The Outsiders.’