For the first time in the school’s history, middle schoolers are no longer watching from the audience or playing minimal background roles; they are taking center stage, working on a play that was designed just for them.
The De Smet Dionysian Players (DDP) are performing the play, The Hobbit, this May with a cast full of middle schoolers in an effort to get them more involved in a department that many of them have already shown interest in.
“What excites me the most is the excitement that they have toward the process,” Theatre Director Nick Moramarco said. “Every time we meet for the rehearsal, they’re just all raring to go and eager and just jumping into it wholeheartedly, in a way that sometimes disappears once teenagers start to get older.”
The play, based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s book, centers around a creature, called a hobbit, who is halfway between a human and a dwarf. The Hobbit goes on a mysterious journey with a wizard named Gandalf to retrieve the dwarfs’ stolen treasure, and ends up meeting a lot of interesting creatures along the way.
“It takes a lot longer of a rehearsal period, usually at one rehearsal for high school, I can accomplish quite a bit more. The middle school, they go at a little bit of a slower pace,” Mr. Moramarco said. “The memorization process for just getting the script into their heads is a little slower sometimes.”
The main roles of this play feature eighth grader Max Lindenbush as Gandalf, sixth grader Ford Roberts as the Hobbit, and sixth grader Luke Vielhaber as the dwarf Thorin, the leader of the dwarfs.
“My favorite part about my role is that I get to move around a lot, and show emotion of how like I go and do it,” lead role of Hobbit Ford Roberts ’32 said. “ I’ve had a lot of fun, and it’s been a little hard, but it’s been fun.
The program first used middle schoolers in both the outsiders and Jesus Christ Superstar shows, with a few of them getting minimal roles in the plays. They hope to use this play as motivation to continue to have middle school led plays in the future.
“Working as a team is definitely something that I have gained, and like making split-second adjustments with the lines or crossing out people or writings,” lead role of Gandalf Max Lindenbush ’30 said. “I think I’ve gained memorization and a lot more confidence than I had before.”
The official performances of this show are on Thursday, May 7, Fri., May 8, and Sat. May 9.
“I think the strongest lesson I want them to gain is that of empathy,” Mr. Moramarco said. “Learning empathy can be a tricky thing, but the process of doing theater, acting in a show, taking on a character, so that you’re not only being yourself, but your empathizing with this viewpoint.”
