The brand new Drama class put on its first performance on December 8th, named You Don’t Know This Because I Haven’t Told You. The performance comprised four student-written plays – “Victory City”, “I am Jack Mesa”, “Everything’s Fine”, and “Fashion fabulous” – all centered around the theme of the need to be heard.
A Drama class hasn’t been offered at Galileo in over 7 years, but after a long time of persuasion from Mr. Ayala, the school has finally let him begin this class as a first time drama teacher. He says, “I’ve been telling anyone who will listen, this is an important thing to offer and we should do this. And they finally said ‘yes’ so here we are.”
The class has been preparing for the performance since the start of the semester, first writing the plays in groups using devise theater, where the scripts are derived from acting out the circumstance. In the class students are taught actor skills such as entrances and exits, character circumstances, and even how to breathe. Mr. Ayala adds, “The real things that you learn though are how to support each other, how to contribute to an idea, how to show focus and follow through. That’s the real thing that people are supposed to learn.”
At the performance of the play, a good number of friends and family turned out to support, starting at 6pm in the auditorium. For those who missed this performance, next semester the Drama class will be supporting Futurama in a spring play: a jukebox musical adaptation of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” where the songs in the musical will be chosen by students. The Drama class will be focusing on technical aspects of theater such as sets and scenery.
Mr. Ayala is enjoying finally being able to teach a drama class. He says, “The kids in this class are such a tight ensemble of actors, they’re creative, they’re supportive. I’m so proud of what they’ve created and happy they are my students.”
