By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
When Sitka Fine Arts Camp theater director Zeke Blackwell was asked by his high school-age drama students, “Why don’t you write something for us?” he knew he was an easy mark.
“I said yes,” but the answer also had a caveat: “But you’re going to help me write it.”
The result is Sitka’s first stage play – albeit virtual – since the start of the pandemic.
The Sitka Fine Arts Camp Young Performers Theater will present “Sclerotic,” an original one-act play written and directed by Blackwell, and starring three regular YPT actors.
The show involves three high school girls – played by Zia Allen, Mina Brooks-Schmidt and Aitana Gluth – on a camping trip, where they navigate their relationships as well as personal challenges of one.
The one-act play was staged February 5, and filmed by Elle Campbell’s technical theater class, and will be posted online later this week on the camp’s website.
“My favorite part was being around people – being with my favorite people,” said Gluth, 17. “I enjoy being around them, and being able to interact with them, and creating something we get to share with people. Also building on my acting skills and experience.”
The three are actors in Blackwell’s Young Performers Theater company and regulars at the SFAC Musical Theater Camp during summers. All three were in the last production staged by YPT, “Pirates of Penzance.”
Young Performers Theater actors, from left, Mina Brooks-Schmidt, Zia Allen and Aitana Gluth perform the original play “Sclerotic” Feb. 5 at the Performing Arts Center. (Photo provided by Christina Van Den Hoogen)
Productions have been on hold since then although SFAC has been offering drama and theater classes (see Feb. 24 Sentinel). Blackwell and the actors are accustomed to being in two to four productions a year through SFAC programs, and were eager to get back to work on a play, even if it meant rehearsing and learning in masks, at social distances, or virtually – during the upticks in cases and when the schools were closed for in-person classes.
The evolution of “Sclerotic” started with a casual conversation during a class, and a bit of a dare from the three young women, ages 17 and 18. Blackwell, who has written several plays, thought fast: “The deal is you will help me come up with ideas, workshop the piece, refine it and we’ll make something.”
The three actors saw a number of advantages. They wanted to continue building skills and working together, but they were also excited to create age-appropriate characters that they could identify with – but were still different from themselves.
“They wanted to play characters like them, with similar hopes, similar fears and similar day-to-day experiences,” the director said.
The actors agreed they wanted the show to be more on the serious side; they wanted to play roles similar to themselves in age, and they didn’t want it to involve any focus on boys or romantic entanglements.
“We wanted to be interested in these characters and their relationships with each other,” Blackwell said.
The four did not want to reveal too much about the plot of the 40-minute show since there are a few “kickers” in it.
The four developed the play over a number of weeks, with Blackwell doing the lion’s share of the writing, with occasional corrections. “Zeke, nobody says that any more!’’ was said more than once, Blackwell said.
Brooks-Schmidt enjoyed the brainstorming for the play, where they not only talked about their characters but things that were different or important to them. She said the three were pleased to recognize these suggestions when they appeared in Blackwell’s script.
“The characters definitely are specifically tailored to us,” Brooks-Schmidt said. “It’s different performing characters that feel really natural.”
She also liked being part of the process to create something original, and to see the writing process continuing to unfold even after rehearsals had started.
Allen also enjoyed seeing the play come together, as well as how much of their suggestions ended up in the script.
“We got to have a lot of input and create the story, so that was cool,” she said. “It was also cool not to be an over-the-top character – it was more like real life.”
Allen, who has been accepted to the musical theater program at Southern Oregon University, said although the one-act was designed with them in mind, she thinks the characters and story are “relateable” enough that others could perform it as well.
The kids are accustomed to the virtual format, but the general sentiment was that if it were possible, they wanted to perform on stage, even to an empty house. Blackwell worked with the actors on precautions and kept their eyes on the vaccination and case rates in Sitka.
“We wanted to find a way to do that,” Blackwell said. “We wanted to produce it as if it were a live show, and record it.”
They raided the prop shop at the Performing Arts Center and the camp for a few props and set pieces – including a campfire and benches, to create a rudimentary set. The lighting design by Campbell is also a simple but functional one.
Gluth said one different aspect of putting on the play is that they could re-shoot various parts if something went wrong. She added that it was a bit of an adjustment performing without anyone in the seats, but they knew from the outset that they wouldn’t have an audience.
“That did change it a little because no one was watching,” she said. “It felt like a dress rehearsal.”
The film is still being edited, and will be posted for free viewing later this week. It will be available online for free, although donations are always welcome to the Fine Arts Camp, Blackwell said.
Blackwell picked up a few students for the winter semester drama class, while the one-act cast continued its work. He’s also turning his attention to “Into the Woods,” the SFAC Musical Theater Camp production this summer. Blackwell will be directing the camp for the first time.
The camp will be a “bubble camp,” where everyone involved will be tested and quarantined for a week, with rehearsals taking place virtually. After that will be two weeks of live rehearsals, with shows set for July 30 and 31.
