Awkward Stage brings youthful enthusiasm to HIT

By STEVE NEWMAN

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Ironwood - The Awkward Stage Drama Club brought its brand of youthful fun and energy to the Historic Ironwood Theatre Saturday night with the club's latest effort, "The Murder Mystery at The Murder Mystery."

The group, which is a cooperative effort between the theater and Ironwood Carnegie Library, is composed of 6-12 grade students from throughout the area. The group gives young people a chance to experience theatre for themselves.

Volunteer Tyler Saari thought the effort of the group was good and was pleased with the flow of the play. "No technical glitches tonight," he said.

The cast practiced for five weeks before putting on the show, and about half of the cast were first-time actors, according to co-director Mary Hansen. She was very impressed with the work of the cast and crew. "It was fabulous, everything went amazing," she said. "They upped it and put on a great show. I'm so proud of them, Gene (co-director Gene Goss) and I are absolutely so proud of them. Just to see the smiles on their faces as they came out, accomplishing something they didn't think they would ever do. A lot of the cast members, this was their first time on stage, so to hear the laughter, hearing the applause, having the courage to do something new, that's what the program is all about."

The play was put together in a very short time with schedule challenges. "We put it together very quickly," Hansen said. One of the things that helped them was that the play featured some of the same scenes over and over. "I kinda thought that would help, and it did," she said.

The challenge of scheduling for young people was part of trying to make the play work. "The kids are involved in so many things," said Hansen. "We didn't have all of them on stage at the same time until Thursday, because they have jobs and we've had some illnesses going through. We did practices in sections to make it work. You have to. It's a challenge to schedule with high school students. We kept it (the practice schedule) shorter to limit the opportunities to not be able to come. We condensed the rehearsal schedule so they didn't think they really had time. So when they practiced, they did a really nice job helping each other out memorizing lines. They had a lot of good teamwork."

First-time actor Phoebe Napier from Bessemer enjoyed the experience. "I did OK," she said. The hardest thing for her getting ready was memorizing her lines and getting the cues right from the audience. She described herself as "pretty nervous" for the play, "but it was fun being with all my friends" for the play. She expressed that the experience helped her build new friendships.

Jaxon Sokol, a Hurley student and performer in a previous Awkward Stage play thought Napier did "pretty good." Sokol enjoyed being the veteran actor of the group and helping to "get everyone together." It's just fun having new people on stage," he said.