Encore Performed Saturday Night

Natalie Ballard

            On Thursday, November 6^th the Thomasville High School cast members of The Glass Menagerie traveled to Darton College in Albany for the regional one act competition.  

Competing against five other teams, they were named runner up to the region winner.  It was close: the cast received a score of first, second, and third; and the winning team received a score of first, second, and second from the individual judges.

The cast includes freshman Emily Bateman, as the mother Amanda; sophomore Travis Draper, as the son Tom; sophomore Brantley Ivey, as the daughter Laura, and senior Ben Hennessey as Jim O’Conner.

The cast received three individual acting awards. The runner-up to best male actor was Travis Draper, while the runner-up to best actress was Emily Bateman. Brantley Ivey was chosen as an “All-Star Cast” member.

Draper said that he thought this year’s one act was even better than last year’s play which won first place in the region and advanced to the state competition.  He hoped that The Glass Menagerie would “make it past regional.”

Ivey said, “It is much different than last year’s, and we received great comments from the judges.”

             The play is about the Wingfield family: the mother, son, and daughter whose father left and the struggles the family had. Tom tells the story as a “poetic memory” in which the mother lives in her romantic past of gentlemen callers and social events, and the shy and physically handicapped Laura lives in a fantasy world of little glass animals. Jim was the most realistic character, as he represented the reality that the Wingfield family was cut off from. Jim was the “long awaited, butalways expected, ‘something’ that [they] lived for,” Jim enters in the final scenes only to seal the sorrowful fate of loneliness and failure for the family.

            One aspect of the competition is that it is a timed production.  The cast and crew have 55 minutes to perform the play including setting up the stage, arranging the sets between scenes, and changing costumes five different times.  The sets include minimal backdrops covered in sheer, painted fabric which evoke the idea of a blurry memory. The set decoration was painted by the AP Art class at the Scholars Academy.  Many parent volunteers participated in the creation of costumes, collection of props, and set building. 

            On Thursday, November 13th, The Glass Menagerie was performed for the Scholars Academy student body.  The performed the one act play for the community on Saturday, November 15 at 7:00pm in the MacIntyre Park Middle School auditorium.

Click HERE to view a gallery of cast and crew pictures from the play.