The senior class at Gibbons has had its fair share of shake-ups. A tumultuous four years full of online learning, the green and gold split, and numerous cancellations in the art department but now it seems like the Gibbons they were promised in 2019 is finally coming to pass. Senior Editor, Honora Quinn sat down with four of her classmates to discuss this topic, the following is transcribed from a recording taken on October 15th, 2022 originally as a group interview, however, the recording has been seperated to focus on drama. 

Preliminary:

Honora Quinn: How long have you been in the art department, and what program you’re representing here?

Reese Booger: I’ve been in the art department for four years and I’m in the drama program here at Gibbons 

HQ: Question 1: What teacher has had the most impact on you?

RB: Ms. Satori, since she’s been my teacher for all four years, well except minus sophomore year, but she’s… she’s really funny. And she’s a great person to just interact with. And she truly enjoys teaching our class

HQ: Question 2: Upcoming Events: What are you most looking forward to? 

RB: I’d say for my class working on actually directing your own scene and creating a play off of a simple scene, treating yourself like a director, running auditions, coming up with the blocking, costumes, and the whole scene concept. It’s pretty fun. It’s what our current project is and we’re doing more of that for the rest of the year.

HQ: Question 3: Why should students join the Arts at Gibbons? Especially if they didn’t as freshmen.

RB: I’d say it’s also like a good way to branch out and like, create new friendships, try new things. Like, if you’ve done it before, great, you’re doing something more, you’re getting up to the next level of getting involved. But also, if you’ve never done it before, hey, it’s a new experience, maybe you’ll like it, maybe you really like it, or you’re just doing it for the grade, as well as just meeting people who are probably doing the same thing as you or have done it for a while creating that new kind of relationship with another person just trying new things dipping your toe in the water.

HQ: Question 4: How has COVID affected your experience with the arts especially now that things are getting back to normal?

RB: For theater, that was a nightmare. It felt like you were taking half of the class and you didn’t get the rest of it because theater is all about conversation. It’s all about contact with another person. And apparently our sophomore year, which is what it really hit, well, we were supposed to do a ton of context stuff and practicing like choreography and like fake battle choreography, but COVID. So we can’t do that. So it knocked out half of our plans for the year, try acting and projecting the mask. It’s not fun. It’s so hard. So it really kind of damaged the impact that theater had. You can see pictures in the hallway when we were doing improvisation scenes. And you couldn’t tell what the person was feeling or doing because you just saw masks, there was no expression and it was like you had to really focus on the eyes. It’s really hard. And then getting into now it’s like, I don’t think we had it doesn’t feel like we had both sophomore year in general, but had a true sophomore year class for theater. Some of the things we’re talking about, like well, we didn’t get to touch on that because of COVID and I mean it’s great because we’re getting back to the things that we can we can we can get close to each other we can interact with them you can actually touch someone my God. But it’s a lot better now. But it also feels like we got robbed of a really vital thing to build before senior year that kind of sucks that we’re having to play catch up, in a sense, while the underclassmen are gonna get the experience that we weren’t able to get.

HQ: Question 5: What advice would you give to your freshman self or freshmen starting out in the arts?

RB: For myself, and just for freshmen now. Don’t be scared to audition. Don’t be scared to audition. I swear it feels like the theater directors are going to kill you when they see you. But they’re not. They’re very sweet people. And don’t like immediately put yourself down when you walk into a theater class. Not everyone has the same experience with acting and projecting and blocking and all that fancy theater lingo. Not everyone’s going to have that same background. Someone might have been doing it since they were five somebody and someone just started. It’s okay. Intro to theater is intro to theater and you’re going to learn more, you’re going to grow more things are going to get better. Practice makes progress, not perfection.

HQ: Question 6: What former students/upperclassmen had a big impact on you as an underclassman?

RB: Kaitlyn. Ryan. Lipps. I had met her on the ensemble retreat during my freshman year. She was one of the only people I really knew because a lot of the upperclassmen had just kind of looked at me like ‘this one’s ours’ and just sent me down with them. And I started talking to her. And I would hear about all the plays, that she was in, all the things that she did, and how much she loves theater and then being on the ensemble retreat, Which, go on retreats, they’re fun. And just being able to interact with all the upperclassmen on that retreat, hearing all the things to do. Another one was like this name is Donnie, he was one of the seniors our freshman year, and that guy was wild. And I love that guy. He was hilarious. Those people definitely made me fall in love with theater more than I ever thought I could fall in love with theater because of how jovial and happy they were, and just excited to do things.

HQ: Final Question: What will you miss most about the Gibbon’s Art Department?

RB: I think the thing that I’m gonna miss the most is like, recognizing the people in the hallway. It’s like, Hey, you’re like going into a classroom being like, ‘yeah, you’re in theater. Hey, do you remember that assignment?’, like, just having someone you know, in another class, and I think that in college, like, there are so many people taking so many different courses, that it’s going to be a slim chance that you’re gonna have that same connection in the classroom. And just the general silliness of my theater class, like my current theater class, is four people, including myself. So having that kind of really close-knit, the silliness, and just being comfortable with each other, is gonna go away. It’s like starting over when you get to college, you’re going to make new connections. And I think I’m just missing that, [as Riley said], the closeness of it all like that kind of tight-knit kind of group is gonna feel a little weird having to redo it all over again.

This Concludes the Senior Spotlight on The Arts: Drama Interview,

The subjects of which would like to personally thank their teachers, friends, family, and the Gibbons community for getting them all here to this point.