Drama Club – Pueblo High School

Drama Gets Dramatic

By Emely Villanueva

Pueblo Theater hosted a show on Wednesday, Feb. 7 during both lunches and 6th period in Pueblo’s Burnes Starks Little Theatre with advanced theater students taking the stage.

This month’s show was taken inspiration off of the Netflix Show Squid Games and Susan Collins’s Hunger Games. This show took place at a hospital, more so a hospital ward. It followed five “test subjects” with appearances from a doctor. The five subject battle it out to see who can survive the “game” longer.

“I did like the show, something that stuck out to me was this is something very different to what we’ve done before. It was very interesting and fun to perform for the show and just a little stressful,” said Kassandra Espinoza Senior in Advanced Theater.

The five subjects were Compassion, Impulse, Courage, Orderly, and Deviousness. They all battled it out during five stages to see who would survive. The lone survivor being Deviousness.

The main take away from this script, is people that manipulate or are devious will quickly learn to manipulate people and if we allow them to manipulate, they will always win.

“Another takeaway is we need to be careful how we label people, people should not conform to the labels placed on them by others, if someone labels you as something you start believing that you start acting like the label,” said Theater teacher Sarah Sutton.

This show had originally been made and scripted in November but had to be pushed back due to their big December show. They started working on it officially two and a half weeks before the show date.

“I feel like we were prepared enough since we’ve had the script since November, the process for getting ready is a collaborative process you have to put in the effort just as much as your peers” said Natalie Salazar Junior in Advanced Theater.

Ms. Sutton knew this was the right show for her students to act in by analyzing her students. She first sees what kind of cohort she has and reads about 40 to 60 scripts per year to choose the perfect script that will fit her students. Pueblo Theater will continue to have shows during March, April and May.

In March theater will be hosting 10-year alumni show, where current and alumni students will be able to perform on stage, in April they will host musical Good Man Charlie Brow, and in May they will be hosting senior show Clue, and this is also where they will wish farewell to the 2024 seniors.

“Our march show is our alumni show, we currently have 15 alumni as of right now, it’s going to be nice I have students d from last year, but I also have students from like the 2nd year I taught, I’m excited for all of them,” Sutton said.

Drama Performances Help Clothing Bank

by Viviana Cruz

For the past three years, Pueblo’s drama department has been hosting annual variety shows during the first semester of the school year. This year, however, has been quite different. For the 2017-18 school year, the advanced theater class decided to host a charity show called “From Screen to Stage”, in order to lend a hand to Pueblo’s very own community clothing bank, currently run by our CBI students.

The show ran at the Little Theater on Monday, Oct. 2, and Tuesday, Oct. 3, and the overwhelming support was unexpected to these individuals as both nights were nearly sold out. The drama club raised $335, and all of the money will benefit the clothing bank. Live music during the performances was played by Mr. Johny Vargas’ guitar students.

Drama director and teacher Ms. Sarah Sutton said, “The purpose of this show was to bring in people who can donate, and we did that by performing pieces the audience was familiar with from movies and TV shows.”

The scenes were very eclectic classic movie scenes—from The Breakfast Club, Mean Girls, House Bunny, Friends, Aladdin, Donnie Darko—among others.

Actress Cheyenne Vega, a senior, said, “The outcome [of our performances] was great! Our actors love to perform and entertain people, but we also love to help out as much as we can—that’s why we performed our show.”

Exceptional education department chair Ms. Trevia Heath said, “We really appreciated what the drama students did for us! Their show collected numerous hygiene items along with more than $300—which will definitely help us purchase socks and underwear, which are always in high demand.”

Actor Milo Madrid, another senior, said, “I worked hard in every show. However, because I was representing not just the drama department but also supporting the clothing bank and our school’s CBI students, this opportunity gave me a little boost to work harder.”

The drama department has never put on a charity show like this before, and because of the effort made by students and teachers—as well as their success—the group said that they are certain this type of performance won’t be their last.

‘Expectations vs. Reality’ Promises to Entertain

By Angelita Delcido

The Pueblo Theater family is treating the Pueblo HS Community with a “real life” view on situations that people experience everyday—a performance that acts out expectations for situations, and shows the reality of these situations. The show is called “Expectations vs. Reality”, and there will be four performances.

After all of the month-long challenges to remember their lines and character building, teacher and director Ms. Sarah Sutton is eager for her students’ performance to entertain and impact audiences emotionally, as well as to make them laugh.

“That’s [making an audience laugh and making an emotional impact is] an actor’s job,” Sutton explained. “We want to entertain—whether our acting makes the audience laugh, or cry.”

pueblo-players-drama-2016-expectations-vs-reality-set — Pueblo Players Drama rehearsing for upcoming shows.

Sutton said the show will definitely entertain, but some audience members may consider the rating to be PG-13 because of some of the show’s themes—including conversations regarding relationships, teen pregnancy, alcoholism, suicide and death.

Sutton wants the community to know that although these “things” are prevalent, “it’s not the crux of the show. Sometimes we think that teens aren’t listening to adults, but everything that we adults say and do influences their every-day life.”

This show has been approved by school administrators.

She also explained students have invested a lot of after school time to rehearse this performance—an estimated 52 hours!

“This is also our first show with live music,” Sutton said. “Over the years, we’ve proven ourselves to the Pueblo Community, and we now have faculty asking to help with lights and sound.” She paused and said, “That’s how professional our program is now.”

The purpose of the show, Sutton said, is to entertain.

Senior Jalena Norzagaray said, “I want to leave a legacy for incoming theater students. I want to inspire the younger actors and actresses to commit to this program because it has helped me in so many different areas of my personal and academic life.”

She added that practices were sometimes grueling but enjoyed how after all of the hard work, everyone united as a huge family.

Sutton added, “I’ve had many of these students since they were freshmen, and to see them now as seniors and how they have grown into young adults is incredibly rewarding.”

[Writer’s footnote: I truly had the honor of watching this performance before the opening night, Thursday, Dec. 1. All of their hard work definitely shows in their performance! Warriors—come join the theatre family at 7 p.m. in the Little Theater, but you should be there a little earlier because these performances sell out quickly. The performance will be Thurs., Dec. 1 and Fri., Dec. 2; and Thurs., Dec. 8 and Fri., Dec. 9, all at 7 p.m.]

Drama Club To Perform Much Ado About Nothing

By Avae Velasquez

Pueblo’s drama club is doing exciting things this school year. On Thursday, April 23 and Friday, April 24, our Pueblo actors and actresses will be presenting the Shakespearean play, Much Ado about Nothing. The play, directed by Ms. Sarah Sutton, the drama teacher, with the help of the assistant director, sophomore Estevan Medrano.

The play will be held in the Little Theatre, Sutton said, and the doors will be opened at 6:15 p.m., and the show will be starting at 7 p.m. sharp. Tickets are only $4 and they are expected to sell out quickly, Sutton added.

Sutton said, “Please come to support Pueblo’s growing theater program! Our students have been working hard in practice over the past several weeks, and I feel like they are definitely ready to perform.”

Much Ado About Nothing is one of Shakespeare’s most common plays and one of his best comedies. The plot revolves around two love stories that are intertwined and the turmoil and confusion that follows.

One of the actresses to perform in the plays, senior Tatiana Begay, said, “I think our play is going to be really successful. We worked really hard and have come a long ways since the beginning.”

Warriors Attend Drama Festival

By Emilio Grijalva and Aliah Luna

Pueblo Players Attend Drama Festival — Pueblo Players attend Drama Festival

Pueblo’s advanced theatre students participated in the Southern Arizona Festival of Theatre at the University of Arizona on January 24, to compete against other drama programs in Tucson area high schools.

Senior Andrea Martinez won three superior ratings, qualifying her for state in Phoenix. She performed monologues from Jake’s Women by Neil Simon and The Scottish Play by William Shakespeare.

Martinez said, “It was an overwhelming experience! I got to spend this moment with people who have the same passion as me. This experience taught me a lot about myself.”

Ms. Sarah Sutton, Pueblo’s drama teacher, said, “I knew during rehearsals that Andrea Martinez was doing really well. I was and am very proud of her.”

Pueblo’s drama students who attended the festival performed solo monologues, small group plays; musicals, and duets.

Sutton began preparing her students after winter break, which involved daily practices to be competitive by late January. Her students selected their own material that they wanted to perform.

Senior Santos Barbosa said, “Everyone there tried their very best and had lots of fun.” Barbosa said that he performed a duet from the play/movie, The Producers called “We Can Do It” with his drama class peer, Gilbert Becerra, a junior.

Sutton said, “I’m hoping that we continue this tradition each year. I’m confident that this year’s beginning students will eventually be in competition with other drama students across Southern Arizona.”