Drama

It's been a hectic year so far. Projects everywhere, assignments to complete, homework everyday just to name a few. One of them is the interclass drama competition. Form 5 classes go head to head to produce the best drama. Our class started planning for the drama way ahead before any other class. Scripts were already prepared the week after we had been told to start preparing for the drama by our English teacher, Misses Monica. Roles for the play and the backstage team were already chosen the next day. I managed to get just a small role in the drama but I wasn't really bothered about it. We used most of our English periods to practice and fully organize our play. Most of the people that had roles were quite rusty when they first practiced. I didn't really have much to do as I only had one line at that time.

Many English periods and a couple of practises on weekends later, everyone was getting better at their roles and improving the intonation of their sentences. There were some problems as certain people decided to quit their roles as they weren't interested to attend practises on weekends and after school. Therefore, a shuffle of roles happened. I got a slightly bigger role as one of the protagonists of the story. It was already February. There was only approximately less than 3 weeks left before the competition, yet we were still struggling to perfect scenes and dialogue even after around 2 weeks of training. Our directors/playwriters were already giving up hope on us as we were fooling around during practises.

We had our last practice on the day before the competition. Mostly everyone involved in the drama were present on that day. We had one full run of the drama which was around 16 minutes, 4 minutes more than it should be. The playwriters were trying their best to cut out unnecessary parts to shorten the length of the drama. After the second run, everyone went about and started to fool around. At that point, our director/playwriter couldn't take it anymore and just left the hall. At this point, I knew that we all had really pushed her to her limits. So, we decided to continue our practice and stopped fooling around. In the end, the best we all could do was around 14 minutes which is still 2 minutes over the limit of the duration of the drama.

It was competition day. The girls were getting ready and doing their makeup while the boys were changing into their outfits. Most of the boys were wearing formal long sleeves with a blazer while I'm just wearing a casual long sleeve and long pants. When we got to the hall, everyone else from other classes were already there with their sophisticated props and different kinds of outfits and costumes. Luckily for our class, we were going to perform last. Before our performance, our director gave all of us a quick pep talk to motivate us to do our best. Before long, it was our turn to perform. Everyone seemed so nervous. I felt slightly nervous while I was waiting behind the stage for my call.

It was my scene and I made my entrance on stage. I felt even more nervous on stage with my stomach feeling different. I kept my calm and followed the plan that we made during the practises. There was a slight hiccup with the sounds but I kept going. After my scene, I felt so relieved. I think that I did quite well out there. I watched the rest of the drama behind the curtains. Finally, it was the end of the drama. We ended it with a bow from everyone on stage. After that, we got off stage and congratulated each other for the great performance that we did. We took pictures while we were waiting for the results to be decided. Finally, it was the moment of truth. The tension in the hall was building with Misses Aruna, one of the judges, giving her opinion on all of the dramas. When she read out the results, I was so nervous. The results came out and we won first place! Everyone from our class were cheering in joy and congratulating each other. Our efforts paid off after all of the stress and complications. It was great to be a part of the class drama. I'll forever remember this day and all the memories that came along with it.