by Zach Seymour ’20

This past summer, Olney Theatre Center hosted a new program designed and executed by a Sherwood senior, Sabina Jafri. The program, New Voices, is a completely student-run show produced as 4 one-acts. These one-acts were written in response to a prompt given out to student writers months before. The scripts were then given to other students who were tasked with directing, designing, stage managing, and performing in the individual pieces. Due to its first-year success the program has been renewed for its second year this coming summer from June 15-June 26.

 Jafri came up with the idea so as to enhance the theatre opportunities for students in Olney. “I noticed that in a lot of public school theatre programs students weren’t especially encouraged to participate in the actual artistic or production processes,” she said. “While this was due to red tape and the content restrictions that exist in the school system, I knew a lot of my peers were getting frustrated and needed a stronger creative outlet.”

Jafri’s connection to the staff at the Olney Theater was invaluable in bringing the program to life. During an internship at the theater in the past, Jafri created a working relationship with Jason King Jones and Rebecca Dzida, educational outreach coordinators at the theatre, who worked diligently with her to bring this program into reality.

The entire cast and crew working on these shows were middle to high school students supervised by a program liaison from Olney Theatre Center. The students were given a 9 a.m.-5 p.m. working schedule through the first week and worked diligently to create a program worthy of the professional stage which they have gifted the use of. Their efforts at the end of the two-week program paid off in the ticket sales for shows that ran over two nights.

“The turnout for the show was great,” said Blake senior Ella Gatlin, one of the co-producers of the program. “We didn’t really expect a full house considering our relatively small cast and crew, but we got one and I think it gave our actors lots of energy.”

The program was greatly successful, tickets for the event were $5 but they filled above 85 percent of available seats each performance. As a whole, the students involved found it to be an experience freeing from other theatre programs which they had been in before. The opportunity of a student-run show is very attractive to kids who want to have a new, interesting, and professional experience in theatre. This past summer the program’s success was optimized by the experience of Beatrice Feldbush, a senior from a high school in Kettering, Ohio. She traveled down to Olney and stayed for two weeks to work on this project, contributing her stage management experience. 

The deadline to be part of the program this summer is April 25. To get more information about joining the program and the dates at https://www.olneytheatre.org/education/new-voices.