Stage Door marked the last full performance in Judge Memorial’s 2024-2025 school year. It’s also the last major performance that seniors in theater will ever play at Judge. Some were interviewed about their experience in theater now that they are mostly done with it.
Oliver Cockle, a four-year actor, said he got into theater at Judge to continue his interests and to jump into a fun elective.
“I joined theater kind of because I’d been doing it for my whole life. But here specifically? I don’t know, it just seemed I didn’t really have anything going on. So I thought, you know, it might might be kind of fun.”
And fun it was. Cockle Loves the community of Judge’s theater.
“My favorite part of about the theater is the community. There’s really cool people that do it. And Mr. Hathaway is pretty cool.”
McKenna Jones, who has also been acting for four years, shares a similar sentiment:
“I think my favorite thing about being an actress in theater is the people I meet and just the different cast members. I say it every year, I love- I LOVE the people who do it, and that makes it all worth it.”
She also has been doing theater for a while before coming to Judge.
“I joined theater at Judge because, you know, it’s always been something that I enjoyed, and I wanted it to be a way to meet new people and kind of grow my skills.”
Xander Klein has been a techie at Judge for four years. The freedom and hands-on production appealed to him.
“I got into tech because … I sat on the course catalog, and I thought it looked really fun to kind of run productions and build stuff and, and kind of just do stuff on your own and have your hands on for some things during the school day.”
And Klein came to love being a techie for that reason.
“My favorite part of being a techie is probably that we just get to do it all on our own. Mr. Hathaway kind of gives us a direction to go, and we just kind of kind of come up with stuff. If Mr. Hathaway’s plan doesn’t work, we can adjust it and kind of work on our own, make our own projects, pick little things to work on, and do them by ourselves.”
Klein’s favorite musical to work on was The Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.
“My favorite musical is Putnam County Spelling Bee this year, which was really fun to work on because I knew the music already, and it’s just a really fun musical, really upbeat.”
The seniors’ favorite play to work on, for both actors and techies, was unanimously The Play That Goes Wrong.
Klein said, “Oh, and my favorite play to work on was last year: The Play That Goes Wrong. It was just really funny, really technical, heavy things. A lot of things could go wrong for us and in the play. So it’s kind of find a problem, solve that as well. So just a fun play to work on because there’s so many different things going on in that one.”
Jones said, “I think my favorite play was The Play That Goes Wrong. It was a lot of moving parts, and it was super, super cool.”
Cockle said, “My favorite play that I’ve worked on is The Play That Goes Wrong, because that was just fun! There was a lot to do there, it was a blast.”
For people who are interested in joining theater, Jones said to try it out and experiment.
“I would say try [theater] for a year. You know, do both the play, the musical, find out what you enjoy more. Meet some people and just test it out before throwing yourself into it.”
Cockle said that he recommends theater to people that want to express themselves and experiment with new things.
“Well, what I recommend to people who haven’t done theater … it’s just a really good opportunity to really express yourself, and that’s part of the fun of it. So I would definitely say, if you like to do things that kind of make you step outside of your comfort zone, I think this is a good place for you.”
