HOPEDALE, N.L. — FLOYD SPRACKLIN
SPECIAL TO THE LABRADOR VOICE
Hindsight is pretty darn good eyesight. If we could only turn back time, how different our lives would be!
American playwright E.M. Bell takes a comedic look at teens and why sometimes there are days you just wish you had stayed home sick from school.
Amos Comenius Memorial School’s (ACMS) Regional Drama Festival entry of Ten Reasons Why You Should Have Stayed Home Sick Today was originally scheduled as a dinner theatre performance to fundraise for the March Festival in Happy Valley-Goose Bay. Stormy conditions prevented this preshow from happening, but a goulash dinner takeout the next day served as a substitute until this recent free community performance.
According to the Playscripts Inc. website, ACMS holds a rather unique distinction of being the only Newfoundland and Labrador production of Ten Reasons in the past three years. In addition to this honour, the Drama Club received two awards while at the Drama Festival, one for Best Stunts and Combat and the other for Excellence in Acting presented to Chloe Dicker.
If you sometimes feel nostalgic for your good old high school days, then you haven't been there lately. Six ACMS teens presented a humorous view of their own lives to much laughter as school memories flooded back for adults in the audience. Yeah, you're definitely gonna wish you took a sick day.
So, what are those 10 reasons? They range from teenage anxieties over social networking and using the school bathrooms to embarrassing accidents, surprise tests, all the way to the ‘I didn’t see that one coming’ reason.
“The two months of rehearsals, the camaraderie, the festival performance, educational workshops, and the entire confidence-boosting experience were very much worth all the energy that everyone invested,” said a proud ACMS Drama Teacher, Katherine Brooks.
When the cast was asked what their takeaway from the past four months has been, they were quite succinct in their responses: patience, practice, being around friends, tolerance, the Drama Festival, and the one answer that summed it all up - EVERYTHING!
Bravo!
