From left, Audry Schultz, Nam Ton, Elias Lindsey, Kelly Biladeau, Yoshi Kumar in the Rachel Carson Middle School production of “Grayscale.” Photo by Lauren Young
The students of Rachel Carson Middle School performed an original production this past week. The play, “Grayscale,” is one the students wrote and staged with the help of Arena Stage artists.
The students who performed in the show are members of the Voices of Now. At Rachel Carson, this group has a total of 20 performers and four crewmembers. This group rehearses twice a week and on some Saturdays.
Ginger Brassingram, an eighth grade student, describes the show as a group effort: “It’s as if we’re a pyramid, and if one person is taken away it falls apart.” The play is unique in that every character remains on stage the entire length of the show.
This movement-based, one act show focuses on the “gray” area of many decisions in life. As a line in the play goes, “Sometimes things aren’t just black and white; they’re gray.” The show touched on subjects of politics, sexual orientation, racism and keeping arts in the schools. By centering the script on these topics, the message to the audience was: “It’s not about being right or wrong; it’s about having different opinions.”
The director of the show, Josh Bickford, said one message the play sends is that the characters are “learning to make choices without their parents guiding them.”
The students were able to learn a lot about performing, but also learned about themselves along the way while working with Arena Stage artists. Elias Lindsey, an eighth grade student, expressed performing with these talented actors as being “a good experience that not everyone gets to do.” The artists not only taught the students how to act and write their own show, but made them feel comfortable enough to grow as individuals in the process. An eighth grader, Cori Williams, described working with the Arena Stage actors as, “an environment where you can say or do what you feel.” Ani Davis, a seventh grade member of the ensemble even said she felt that, “we’re all a big family.”
The students performed at Rachel Carson Middle School on Thursday, May 16, at 7 p.m., and again on Sunday, May 19, at the Arena Stage at 7:30 p.m.