Kicking off the first of a hoped for many theater productions, students at the Traverse City College Preparatory Academy presented "Sorry, Wrong Number” for three shows last week.
Before even a semester passed since its fall opening, the newest school in town offered the short, one-act drama that chronicled the quest of a bed-ridden woman, Mrs. Stevenson, to prevent a murder. Set in the 1930s, a crossed phone connection clues her in to the plot but frantic pleas for help from telephone operators, the police and hospital staff go unheeded.
The killing takes place with Mrs. Stevenson turning out to be the victim. The title and final line of the story comes when the murderer notices that his prey managed to dial the police just before he burst into the room. He picks up the dropped handset and coolly tells the sergeant, "Sorry, wrong number.”
"The story is really bizarre, you have to watch it to understand it,” said Katrina Shonk, a ninth grade student at the school, who was both a telephone operator and a hospital receptionist.
Portraying Mrs. Stevenson and anchoring the plot, sophomore Karry Mang noted that the seven actors pulled the production together in about five weeks. Acting and directing veteran Jill
Beauchamp, the school's English teacher, first let the students select the genre: drama versus comedy. She then gave them four scripts to review and choose among.
"The way we went about choosing it, it was really student centered,” said Beauchamp, co-founder of the Riverside Shakespeare Company, who held auditions for the roles.
"We haven't formed a club yet,” she continued on the school's future theater plans, which include a drama class in the spring. "It's our first production and we're not sure where we're going next.”
Situated in a renovated church building on the east side of town, the Traverse City College Preparatory Academy does not have a theater space yet. Instead, students used the big commons area at the front entrance for both stage and seating.
Cast members also pulled together the simple costumes and helped gather or create minimalist sets and props. They rehearsed during lunch and after school, putting in extra hours on their own to master the extensive dialogue.
"Memorizing my lines was the hardest,” said Ariana Burk, a freshman at the school. "I did it with my parents and siblings and friends — every time I had a break.”
An additional hurdle in "Sorry, Wrong Number” is that characters interact with each other only over the phone. This means all projecting and reacting had to be focused on a telephone receiver, without any visual feedback from the other actors.
"It's a challenge to present it because we don't even see each other,” said Mang.
School leader Cameron Owens praised his budding thespians — who spanned the gamut of acting experience from novice to church production experience to a veteran of the Traverse City Children's Theater.
"It was very exciting to experience our inaugural play! I was giddy!” he enthused.
Owens noted that theater and other extracurricular activities will help the young school foster pride and spirit, develop students' character and are central to the high school experience. As the school population grows the roster of extracurricular choices, which currently includes boys and girls sports teams, will as well. "For many students, 'high interest' extracurricular activities, whether they are athletic oriented, performing arts based or otherwise, are the keys to academic 'buy in,'” Owens continued. "Subsequently, the school and parents can use them to establish and maintain student motivation to excel in the classroom as well.”
For more information on the Traverse City College Prep Academy, call 929-4539.