By Bobby Black – Sports Editor

The Jonathan Law Drama Club thrilled audiences with its performances of “High School Musical” on May 5-6.

The play was a musical and included many songs, characters, and scenes from the original movie.

“My favorite moments throughout the play were the scenes called ‘We’re All In This Together’ as well as ‘Get Your Head In The Game’ and ‘Status Quo,” sophomore Max Akuffo said.

Some key characters in the play were Troy Bolton, Chad Demforth, Zeke Bailor, and Gabrielle Montez.

“I played Jason Cross who was the best friend of the main character, Troy Bolton, which was a fun and good character to play,” Akuffo said.

There were some challenges in planning and rehearsing for the play but the Drama Club overcame these challenges and performed well.

Several Drama Club members were even for High School Halo Awards for their performances, including Hailey Russo for her role as Sharpay Evans, Faith Santiago as Ryan Evans, Sofia Mazzella as Ms. Darbus, Finn Sclafani as Troy Bolton, and Tim Girandola as Zeke Baylor.

Freshman Eliot Carter said the play’s choreography was the biggest obstacle.

“Some of the biggest challenges were remembering choreography and lines as well as getting to meet the new people in the play,” freshman Eliot Carter said.

Senior Sofia Mazzella said that despite the large crowds in attendance, she was not nervous on stage.

“I tell myself that rather than letting the crowd intimidate me, to let them excite me,” Mazella said. “I let myself feel all the emotions that may be in my mind at the time, including the nerves, because believe it or not, nerves motivate me to do my best. I also seek support from my cast and crew members in which they help calm me down, and basically hype me up, and share the same excitement that I obtain. I make sure I feel confident within my physical appearance to increase my overall confidence about my performance.”

Remembering lines can be the most difficult part of performing a musical, but the cast said they came up with different methods of memorization.

“I usually easily adapt to my lines, and they naturally get implanted into my mind, and when we rehearse every week, my mind is continuing to be trained to memorize them,” Mazzella said. “In my free time, I sometimes rehearse lines with friends, as well as read over them millions of times until I am comfortable. As for techniques, I sometimes focus on the few last words of the line that the other actor may say before my lines. I sorta use that as my cue to remember which line comes when. If it comes to memorizing a monologue, which I had to do multiple times, I really focused on dividing it into pieces, memorizing those pieces, and then allowing it to all flow together.”

Akuffo said the close-knit nature of Drama Club helped the play go smoothly.

“On both days that we performed there were a lot of people in the crowd and the play went smoothly because of our chemistry and we all got along and worked really hard,” Akuffo said.