On Thursday, November 20, the doors to the Central Kitsap High School opened up to the awaiting audience to see the first play of the year, Dracula. The weeks that lead up to the production have been stressful for the cast members as they learned their lines by memorization on and off book.
“The only hard part was really our first few weeks off book,” student actor Juancho Perez said. “Because I had to memorize it, it was just stressful, but now that I have everything memorized, it’s really easy.”
It takes time and effort to memorize and practice lines. They methodically go through the phases week by week needed to get the lines perfected. Then they’re expected to know their lines, blocking, and role.
“For a straight up contemporary show, we tend to have an eight to 10 week rehearsal window,” Director of Productions Zach Timm said. “We take about the first month of the production where the actors have scripts in their hand, and they’ll be able to read their lines. Then we have a week or two where we call it off book with line call, and that is where they are able to call for a line and the stage manager will read it to them, and they, you know, don’t need to have it fully memorized. And then the final two to three weeks of the production is usually off book, no line call.”
During their weeks, some of the actors have great connections with their characters, relating to their past events. Whether it be from personal experiences or others experiences, experiences seem to be the key factor in connecting with the actor’s roles.
“[Dr. Seward] is just an awkward, clumsy guy that falls in love with people that do not love him back,” Perez said. “That’s literally me from middle school. I was an awkward, funny guy who fell in love with people who did not back and it was really funny. There were so many times where I was just reading a script, and I just got flashbacks to middle school.”
Dracula was chosen with care to the actors looking into personalities that may be similar to characters, strengths, and collective abilities. While still testing them and allowing growth.
“In terms of how I go about selecting a show, I tend to look at the state of our program, how many actors we have, what their strengths are, where we can maybe challenge them and grow and develop, and then I try to select a title that is going to accentuate those traits while also allowing for new opportunities,” Timm said.
However, some actors didn’t have a good connection with their characters, making it harder for them to reenact the character as the actors would have completely different personalities than the character they’re playing for.
“I can try to get in the zone for [Dracula] and pretend that I am him, but at heart, there’s not much relation I can give him to my personal self,” student actor Miles Borer said. “He’s all about superiority to others and lots of killing. That’s not exactly how I swing. I can get myself in the mind of the mindset, but there’s not a lot of personal drawing that I do for [Dracula].”
While actors may feel similar, disconnected, or somewhere in between regarding their characters they are trusted by their director and fellow cast members to be fully capable of capturing the essence of the roles.
“I just wanted to give my actor something challenging as well,” Timm said. “We have a lot of great senior leaders in our program who are ready for those huge, iconic roles, so I was excited to give them that opportunity with Dracula.”
