Sean C. Morgan
The Sweet Home Junior High School will present “Beauty and the Beast” this weekend.
The part of Belle is played by Hailey Trew, and the Beast is portrayed by Donovan Davis.
Trew said she’s participated in theater “since I was about 4.”
“People have said I’m a natural, and I feel like I am meant for acting. It’s always been my friend. I think it’s a really creative way to express art. Art is everything. ‘Earth’ without art is ‘Eh.’
“I think acting is something everyone should give a shot at. You never know your hidden talent.”
Davis said he decided to try theater this year “because I failed to join last year.”
“I think drama is cool because I get to explore a part of me that I knew I had,” he said. “I had just never got the chance to use it. I honestly didn’t think I’d be cast as a main character though I did try out for one.
“It brings people together. It just let’s people interact with people, teamwork.”
Science teacher Liz Wieland is directing the play. Language arts teacher Brian Gold is co-director.
Led by Alisha Isabell and Patricia Kilpatrick, students build the sets for the play.
Isabell is a natural leader, Wieland said, while Kilpatrick does a great job and is active in numerous clubs.
Wieland wrote the script, but borrowed names from the Disney movie, she said, so she had to pay royalties to use her script. She chose to write her own script to play to the strengths of junior high students.
“I always feel that junior high students bring so much energy and different interpretations of everything,” Wieland said. “I always want to use their natural humor and awkwardness to what they perform on stage.”
Wieland tries to work a theme pertinent to junior high students into their plays, she said. “The message is to be yourself, to not let others alter who you are. There are phrases about finding beauty within, the beauty of your character.”
Several characters go through several transformations, she said. The Beast is the most obvious, from being literally beastly to beastly in character, as he finds beauty within himself as Belle sees past all of it.
“It’s a common theme,” Wieland said. “I’m relating it more toward junior high kids.”
At this age, teens constantly focus on how they look, she said, and tend to lose sight of their inside character.
“It being for junior high students, it’s a pretty huge deal,” Trew said. “People only care about beauty. I think it’ll help people see the world in a different perspective.”
Acting in this play has helped him find things out about himself he didn’t know before, Davis said.
“This play has also taught me not to doubt yourself.”
Incorporating characteristics she finds in her character, Trew said, she’s doing better at her school work.
“It’s kind of fun,” Isabell said. “The one part I saw is really good. I liked it a lot.”
“A lot of work,” Kilpatrick said. “Fun too. I think it’ll end up really great with all we’ve set up.”
The play begins at 6 p.m. on Friday and 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Saturday in the Sweet Home High School auditorium.
Admission is $4, $2 for students and free for children in kindergarten and younger.