J.D. Potié
PONTIAC May 28 – 31, 2019
From May 28 to 31, hundreds of Pontiac residents gathered inside Pontiac High School’s auditorium to take in an evening of medieval hilarity through a theatrical production put on by students and staff.
Scheduled for a 7 p.m. start, people started flooding the gates at around 6:30 p.m. to land the best seats possible for the special occasion.
Directed by the school’s drama teacher, Gord Graham, the production was called Game of Tiaras.
Written by prominent American playwright Don Zolidis, the play, conceived specifically for high school productions, takes on a satirical mash up of the TV show Game of Thrones, Disney fairytales and Shakespearean tragedies like Hamlet.
From its witty jokes, to its relatable script and diverse cast of quirky, personable characters, the production filled the room with a sea of laughter from start to finish leaving performers with standing ovations.
Set in middle-ages England, the play features the tale of a king and three princesses Cinderella, the Snow Queen and Belle from Beauty and the Beast.
One day on the King’s 50th birthday, amidst a midlife crisis, he decides to secede his power and let his evil daughters divide responsibility of the kingdom as they wish and naturally blood, lust and hilarity ensues.
Originally slated to be put on in May, the production was postponed due to some of the student’s struggles with this year’s record floods.
With around 35 cast and crew members consisting of mostly grade 11 students, the group started working on the play’s production in January when Graham initially handed out the scripts.
Having worked with the school’s drama department for over 20 years, Graham takes great pride in knowing his students’ strengths and weaknesses which is why he personally selected each cast and crew members’ roles without submitting them to auditions.
“I tell them who’s going to be who and they run with it,” he said. “So, you begin with that. You tell them that that’s part of the process. I’ve worked with a lot of these kids, some of them for three years now. I’ve been here 21 years.”
Three years ago, after around 20 years of not putting on theatrical productions at the school, Principal Debra Stephens approached Graham with the intent of getting PHS’ theatre game back on track. Without hesitation Graham was all in.
After putting on a comedy at the school around Christmas time called It’s a Wonderful Neverland – a take on if Peter Pan was never born, Graham felt like the students were finally ready to take on the task once again.
“We had a lot of fun with it and I thought we had a cast with kids that could really run with something that was comedic. And it’s very difficult to do. It’s very challenging to do funny because they have to play it straight. It’s like all those classic comedies where the people on stage don’t know it’s funny.”
After seeing her students put on plays every year since, Stephens felt proud that her school is finally providing a variety of artistic avenues for students. With a wealth of opportunistic diversity in athletics, academics and trades, she’s happy that PHS’s arts department is finally trending in the same direction.
“To be able to have music and drama and arts really thriving again at the school, we’re ticking all the boxes,” she said. “Everybody gets a chance to really shine. It’s so exciting to see it back. It’s just wonderful.”
Throughout the production process, Graham said he noticed a true sense of family among the students participating.
From the struggles of knowing the script by heart to forming an indelible bond with castmates, putting on a play isn’t something that gets done in the blink of an eye. According to Graham, a single production requires an incredible amount of time and dedication to execute. However, the rewards at the end of it are undoubtedly worth the pain.
“You don’t just get up on the stage,” he said. “It’s a tremendous amount of learning the lines, practicing, getting to trust the castmates. It’s a team effort. They need to realize that they can’t mess up because they let down the whole thing. So, it’s a whole other kind of pressure for them. But the rewards are just fantastic.”
Graham was proud of his students for their contributions to the play and in some cases for building confidence and coming out of their shell as actors and people.
“There’s a number of them that got brave as this went on,” he said. “First, they just wanted to be backstage. Then, it was ‘I wouldn’t mind a small part.’ And now, there’s a number of them that have great big parts and have just really come out of their shell and seen a side of themselves they didn’t know they had.”
According to Graham theatre is one of life’s best teachers. While schooling is vital to academic success, he believes being on stage teaches things that can’t be learned anywhere else.
“Being on stage is like nothing else,” he said. “You tell the kids that this is a rush, this is something – you will never remember what you learned in class, but you will always remember being on stage and for a lot of kids they’re not into sports, they’re not student government. Some of them are. Some of them are doing everything. But for a certain clientele this is a highlight of their lives really.”
With hundreds of locals packing the auditorium over the three nights of production, Stephens was thankful for the population’s unrelenting participation in the school’s events.
“The community just responds so well,” she said. “They have been so supportive to having it back. Without an audience there’s no performance. So, it’s always important to have them supporting us so well.”
In total, the show raised $2,600 in ticket sales that will all go towards the auditorium’s new seats, curtains and stage props for future productions.
