By Elizabeth Lande, Reporter
This Thanksgiving break, a time which most people spend with their family and friends, English teacher and Drama director Dr. Stephen Floyd will take four students across the globe to China as part of a week-long international theater festival.
Leaving for a foreign country on one of the most American of holidays may seem odd, but according to senior Alivia Jones, one of the actors in the play, it’s beyond worth it.
“[Flying] halfway around the world will leave little room for disappointment, ” Jones said.
No stranger to acting, Jones has appeared in numerous theatrical productions, but she admits that the global aspect is new to her.
“I’ve never been to China before,” she said. “In fact, I’ve never even left the country.”
The trip is also a new opportunity for the Drama Club, as the school’s first visit to the international theater festival.
“I’ve never taken a group of students on a trip like this before, ” Floyd said. “I think it’s a great opportunity.”
The Drama Club may be new to the festival, but actors and theater troupes from around the world have been traveling to Shenzhen, China for a number of years. The festival is almost completely subsidized by the Chinese government, so participants can perform for close to free, only needing to pay for airfare.
This year, the festival managers placed an emphasis on youth actors. Floyd was contacted by Charlotte Tiencken, former managing director for Book-It Repertory Theatre in Seattle, who had been asked to bring a group of young actors to this year’s festival. Tiencken has worked with Drama Dock, a Vashon theater group, in the past. She is also a previous participant in the festival, and directed Romeo and Juliet there a few years ago.
Earlier this year, Tiencken was contacted by a person she had met in China.
“[She] got a call … from someone she met the last time she went to China, who is involved in this festival,” Floyd said. “He invited her to come and bring a group of young people and a play to perform for the festival this year. She didn’t really have young people that she knew so she called me and said, ‘Would the high school like to be involved?’ and that’s how we kind of got looped into the trip.”
Floyd mentioned that the group going will be small and will perform a total of three times.
“We’re going to perform a short a play called Sophie,” sophomore Gillian Kirkpatrick, who’s traveling with the Drama Club as a technician, said. “[It’s] a really good one to do internationally because … it’s pretty simplistic. You don’t really need anything other than a lamp post and a bench.”
The play is based on a true story. A girl named Sophie, who lives in England, dies in a car crash on her way to college, leaving behind numerous journals filled with her writing and poetry. Playwright Bryan Willis took the notebooks and created a play based on excerpts and entries in them, fashioning the play as though Sophie were writing a letter to her past self.
“It’s pretty cool. [It’s a] message that a lot of people can get,” Kirkpatrick said.
Jones, one of the play’s two actors, shares a similar passion for the play.
“I really love the play itself because it incorporates some of Sophie’s own writing, and it has a beautifully surreal storyline,” Jones said.
Some plays, particularly those with controversial messages or themes, aren’t allowed at the festival.
Before getting confirmation to attend the festival, Floyd had to submit the play’s script to the Chinese censors for approval.
“If they had not liked the play, they would have told us, ‘You can’t do that play’ … because the Chinese government has certain things that just can’t be said publicly,” Floyd said.
Floyd is excited for the trip, and hopes it will become a tradition for the Drama Club.
“I would love to think that this would be something that we might be able to do every few years. If we could … maybe go … every three or four years, it would mean that just about every one of my theater students who goes through the program … would have the opportunity to go,” Floyd said.
For VHS participants, this trip could also open up additional opportunities beyond just a one-time experience. Jones and Kirkpatrick, as an actress and a technician, respectively, expressed a desire to pursue their roles in this production as potential careers.
“I’ll definitely relish putting this experience on my college application!” Jones said. “It may even be worth writing a last-minute essay about.”
Kirkpatrick spoke to the power of acting as a unifying force.
“I always thought theater was a really cool thing,” Kirkpatrick said. “It brings all types of people together. [Theater] can bridge across oceans and countries and [people] can just come together for one experience. [That’s] really, really cool.”
For those interested in seeing the play, the Drama Club plans to perform it, and a few other short skits, in mid-November before they leave for Shenzhen. Performance dates are Nov. 10, 11, 17 and 18.