Coming soon to theaters: students pursuing drama in future

The drama department’s successful performances in the spring musical “Jekyll and Hyde” is credited to the actors’ devotion, from their construction of a mobile, high-tech set to the long hours spent in their daily rehearsals.

After directing so much of their time not only in the spring musical, but in the fall play and other student directed productions, some of the student actors find it hard to abandon the theater once their time at SHS ends.

“I would love to be an actor,” junior Penny Burgess said. “I know that it’s a hard career to get into, but I definitely want to try because it’s the one thing that I’ll always love.”

Burgess, who played Lady Beaconsfield in “Jekyll and Hyde,” has been on the stage since she was a kid in as many as 30 productions.

“I like to come up with memorable characters that make the audience laugh and cry,” Burgess said. “My goal as an actor is to do that with every role, to bring out a good message to the audience.” She said she is equally interested in both television and theater, and he is looking for a college that will give her the opportunities to act in both domains.

Burgess is also open to different acting styles in the future and hopes to perform both comedic and dramatic roles.

“It’s fun to do both because drama is more about emotions, while comedy is more about the character and delivering lines with the right timing,” she said. “It’s fun to alternate.”

Junior Josh Harris, another major participant in drama, is leaning more toward work behind the curtain.

“As of now, my goal is to be a screen writer for an esoteric sitcom that nobody watches,” Harris said. He said he loves to write, and wants to pursue screenwriting as a career for more inconspicuous TV productions, his favorite being “30 Rock.”

“[Screenwriting] is a great way to let it all out and to get to be funny,” Harris said. “That’s where all the weird people are.”

While Burgess and Harris are still weighing their options for the future, senior Chaz Main has already begun his acting career. He said he has chosen to go to San Jose State University, because it has the best South Bay theater company. However, he is joining with a bigger purpose in mind.

“I actually like to to direct. I act for fun, but I really love to direct,” Main said. “That’s probably my true passion.”

Among his own directed productions at SHS such as “The Woman in Black” from last fall, Main has done voice-overs for video games, starred in the movie “Creep Van,” and is off to Toronto in May for the set of another movie, Autonomy, where he will play a murdered guy who haunts a girl who received his heart for a heart transplant. He said that his goal is to get his own movie distributed by the time he’s 30, and while his agenda is clearly set so far, it wasn’t so easy to make.

“My parents wanted me to go into business or engineering, but at the end of the day you just really got to do what you want to do, [and] what makes you happy,” Main said.

While the three of them all have different aspirations for the future, they all agreed that what they’ll miss most about leaving SHS drama is the family atmosphere.

“It’s a really tight-knit group of kids,” Main said. “We’ve all just gone through emotions together, and every year when seniors graduate it’s so sad.”

Harris, who moved to the district from Palo Alto at the beginning of high school, is very grateful for caring environment.

“I got to know all these great people in the last three years,” Harris said. “It’s going to be hard to reinvent myself again.”