LOS ALAMITOS, CA — On Dec. 6 at 4 and 7 p.m., the Los Alamitos High School Intermediate Drama class displayed their talented acting skills through their annual play “Results May Vary.” With a goal of completing 30 “plays” in 60 minutes, audience members had the power to choose what skit they wanted to see next. In this production, Intermediate Drama students worked together to direct and write their own two-minute plays.
Once the show started, after beginning the countdown for one hour, the audience burst into excited screaming of which number play they wanted to see from the “menu” of the skits. Then, Ms. Castiglione, Los Al’s drama teacher, ripped down the number of the play from a string hanging overhead. Once the play ended, Ms. C raced back onstage and the audience yelled which number skit they wanted to see next. Then, she took down the selected number, called up the next performers, and the cycle started over again until all 30 plays were taken down.
“The show has no order!” said Ms. Castiglione. “The actors have zero idea when their scene will be called to perform since the audience dictates the order of the scenes based on what they want to see next, so the actors have to stay focused and on their toes. It’s a super fun and fast-paced show, and the students learn so much about themselves and each other.”
One audience favorite was the play “5 Reasons Why Bald People Suck!” by Ella Cox. The story began with three students giving a school presentation on why bald people are the worst. While one presenter in particular passionately explained why she hated bald people, another student reluctantly defended the singled-out group. This ended with a heated argument and a plot twist revealing that the second student was actually bald herself, bringing gasps from the audience. The entire skit was filled with sassy and entertaining humor.
“Thoughts,” by Jenny Woo was another crowd-pleaser. The play tells the story of a puzzled writer, struggling to develop the script for a two-minute scene. The audience was able to hear the writer’s internal thoughts while another actor played out her imagination as she bounced through ideas. With the writer constantly changing her mind, the second actor struggled to keep up with the pace of the inconsistent ideas. Finally, the scriptwriter decided to write her play about someone struggling with writer’s block. As the second actor sat down to write, the cycle repeated itself in a mind-boggling conclusion of the play.
“It was really fun. The tension was definitely extremely high,” Woo said. “I believe that all my classmates did extraordinarily well. They are so talented; I have no words to describe them.”
Another humorous play was “Three-Year-Old Interview.” Acting as a three-year-old, one of the drama students pulled an “audience member” from the crowd for a Q&A. However, the toddler interviewer only asked “why?” for all of her questions except the first one, causing the interviewee to reveal dark secrets. The entire play reminded the audience of why three-year-olds would be terrible interviewers in an amusing performance.
The Intermediate Drama students gave a spectacular performance, continuously generating laughter from the interactive audience. Be sure to check out Los Al drama’s next entertaining production!
