Every single day in the PAC after school, theater students can be found rehearsing scenes and running lines in preparation for the fall play.
On November 1st, the Thousand Oaks High School theatre department will premier the play “Almost, Maine.” The play tells 12 different love stories about 12 different couples which all take place in the fictional town of Almost, Maine
“It’s love, but not quite,” senior cast member Evelyn Rodgers said.
“I really like that it all blends together,” senior Haley Hallman said. “It tells so many different stories and its so realistic, yet it has a sense of magic about it.”
The cast first started practicing about a month ago. Practice is held in the Performing Arts Center almost every afternoon.
“[At rehearsal] we basically run one scene after another, whether it’s show order or no particular order, and [Mr. Donia] gives us notes,” sophomore Lacey Tuell said.
The play will run for two weekends, Nov. 1 through third, and Nov. 7 through tenth, at 7:30pm. Tickets will cost ten dollars at the door.
The two act play is unique as each of the stories take place in the same time, but in different places with different circumstances.
“It’s a good show because it doesn’t get boring with it being one long story. Especially with plays where there isn’t music, it’s a lot more interesting when there’s a bunch of different stories,” Tuell said.
While having several different stories will make the play more enjoyable for the audience, it makes it more difficult for the cast to memorize their lines.
“In most shows you’ll have 20 lines in one scene, and then you’re in another scene, and you can do it in chunks. In this show, there’s only two or three of you for the whole scene and you’re reliant on yourself for memorizing all of it,” Hallman said.
Most members of the cast said that the most difficult aspect of the production is memorizing the script.
“The hardest stuff is probably memorizing the lines and what my take on the character should be,” sophomore Liam Novak said.
For some members of the cast, this is their first time in a Lancer theater production.
“I have done acting when I was younger, but I didn’t tryout [for the play] last year. A lot of my friends were going to be here so I just decided ‘what the heck, why not,’” Novak said.
Like Novak, junior cast member Ben Rendon was drawn to the sense of community and friendship “Almost, Maine” has to offer.
“I saw these guys and I thought, wow, what a great group of people,” Rendon said. “It just seemed like a program that was really pure and genuine and something I would really love to be apart of.”
Other cast members chose to try out for the play because of past positive experiences with the TOHS drama program.
“‘I’ve been involved in theater since freshman year and it’s honestly been such a great experience so far and I’ve gotten to meet a lot of people that I wouldn’t have otherwise met,” Hallman said. “And so senior year, I want to stick around and dedicate that to our program.”
Cast members look forward to performing “Almost, Maine” in front of the Thousand Oaks community and their peers this weekend.
