Northgate HS drama students take "The Warriors" and "The Lady or the Tiger?" shows on the road

After creating a "touring" production of Little Women by his Northgate HS drama students last year, Drama Artistic Director John Litten and his Drama III students followed up this year by touring two productions - one for elementary students ("The Lady or the Tiger?") and one for middle and high school students - "The Warriors." A small cast of students staged three back-to-back performances of "The Warriors" over two days - April 28 and April 30 - at Foothill MS and Valley View MS, then culminating with a performance for Drama students at College Park HS. 

Their goal was to bring student-driven, high-quality free educational theater directly to other MDUSD campuses, Litten said. "Not only does this provide our young actors with real-world performance experience, but it also fosters creativity, empathy, and engagement in the audiences we serve." As the only two high schools with drama programs in MDUSD, Litten and College Park HS teacher Tony Gardner have also collaborated on creating an honors Drama course that will launch at both schools next year, and they are discussing the idea of developing a Theater Festival, similar to band festivals that are held at many schools.

The show focused on fights between rivaling gangs, but also dealt with themes of friendship, families, survival and peace. After the performance, Northgate students answered questions from their College Park peers about their fight scenes, costumes, and rehearsals.

All the students posed for a group photo with their teachers after building bonds as fellow actors. Gardner said he invited the Northgate students to College Park to strengthen ties between the two schools based on their love of drama. "Collaboration between high schools is always good - good for students and for the district," he said. "Sharing and enjoying performing arts together is important. We shouldn't always just get together to compete, but to collaborate." 

The College Park students were especially impressed by the choreographed fight scenes, which included one gang swinging bats at rival gang members, punches, slow motion kicks, grunts, groans and even some "leap frog" jumps. The Northgate actors talked about how they concentrated on their facial expressions and practiced projecting their voices in rehearsals. To make it easy to tour the show, there were no sets and few props.

The Northgate students also discussed the sacrifices they make to be in productions, rehearsing after school and on weekends, while juggling school and other activities, as well as District and AP testing at this time of year. But they do it because they love it, they said. They spend so much time together that they have become like a second family. 

Litten invited Gardner to bring his students to perform at Northgate. "Let's start to build a bridge," Litten said. "Let's start to see each other's plays." College Park HS student Emme Potts, a junior, said she supports this. "I do think it's a good idea for people to connect between schools," she said. "Bringing two schools together to perform for one another - to have that opportunity - is a very good idea."

Click on this reel to see highlights from the show.