On top of the exciting, yet busy, rush that the beginning of the school year brings, many of South’s acting-enthused students prepared an audition for South’s fall production of Our Town. Shortly after classes began, on Sept. 4, the hopeful actors presented various monologues, hoping to get cast under the direction of Drama and English teacher Dan DeMarco.
After choosing handfuls of plays over the years, DeMarco is incredibly excited to bring Our Town to life with South’s students over the next month.
“I wanted to find something that had a larger cast than we had last year,” DeMarco said. “This year we got to recruit new people, so it should be interesting.[Our Town] is a fun play to both read and perform. On the surface, it doesn’t seem like it’s more than just a day in the life, but once you get into Act Three and further on in the play, some real issues start to come up.”
Picking a cast for such a dynamic play can be difficult, but with the system DeMarco created for himself over the years, Our Town is set to be a very entertaining performance with equally talented performers.
“Inevitably, in any cast, people are disappointed,” DeMarco said. “It happens, so they always ask, how did this happen? What could I have done better? But sometimes the answer is, you couldn’t do anything better. You’ve got to be good at what you do, but, more importantly, you’ve got to fit the role. You have to make the story fit and be what I’m looking for, for that character.”
Casted as Stage Manager, Ellie Sahutske ’26, found that reading a character’s personality, and preparing to audition for a specific character, becomes easier the more you do it. Being in her third play, Sahutske was more comfortable and confident stepping into this year’s auditions.
“It’s nice because I’ve worked with Mr. DeMarco a couple of times now,” Sahutske said.”So there’s less mystery about how it’s [auditions] going to go. Also, I’ve come to know myself better and prepare in a way that I know works for me.”
As someone newer to South’s production family, Delaney DeMarco ’28, found herself knowing almost nothing about Our Town, and leaning on some of her fellow performers for clarity before the auditions.
“I relied on the other students a lot,” DeMarco ’28 said. “When we got the monologues and were reading them over, we spent a good amount of time bouncing ideas off of each other before we got called into the auditions.”
Both DeMarco and the performers are eager and excited to show off their skills on the stage in the weeks to come.
