By: Natalie Koch

The advanced theatre class began their seven month process for producing BLOOM at the beginning of the school year in August. The class, made up of juniors and seniors, began the year by writing one-minute elevator skits, which deloped later into making ten-minute plays. Katherine Hudson, Rose Theatre Company’s president, really enjoyed the process. As a writer (Capture the Flag), a director (The Descent), a performer (Smile), and a stage manager of Act II, she had a very busy time working towards making the performance the success that it was. “It was extremely empowering to know that we had created this production from scratch,” she said. As one of six writers, Katherine had to let her play go to another student to direct. “I had a very clear vision of what I believed my play would look like when writing it, and when you pass it to another director it is not your vision anymore,” she described. “I didn’t see my play on stage until the first tech run. When I saw it for the first time I was completely over joyed. It was evident that the director and actors had brought the story to life. I was so proud of them, and very relieved to know that my play had been so well done”

Katherine also directed a show written by Hope Preischel based on the legend of Pandora’s box, called The Descent. “It was a new experience for me, but I loved getting to make artistic decisions that would help convey the story,” Katherine said. As director, she got to make decisions such as set, lighting, costumes, and casting. “It was a lot of work between directing, acting, and stage managing once we got into the production process,” she added. “Also, I had never stage managed before, and it involved sitting in the sound booth to call all of the technical cues for the show which required a lot of patience, concentration, and collaboration with other directors to make sure I was calling the cues at the right time.”

At the end of the process, Katherine looked back on BLOOM with fondness. “I think that everyone learned something new from BLOOM. Whether it was people who usually do tech being on stage for the first time, or actors who have little tech experience getting to try out new technical elements, we all learned something new,” she noted. “I feel extremely proud of this class just knowing that we created this. It was a combination of all of our hard work, and it came together into something beautiful. We had to learn and grow from each other, and we had to trust in each other. At the beginning of the year we didn’t know what this production would look like. By the time the show rolled around, we had six plays that were ready to be presented to the world.” With the entire Advanced Theatre class’ efforts, these six plays unleashed their power to the Assumption Community at the start of a fantastic Mission Week.

                                       Katherine falls to the floor during a climactic moment during the play “Smile.”

                Coco Charlton and Maggie Ernst celebrate their capture the flag victory in Katherine’s play, “Capture the Flag.”

                Aubrey Harris, Haley Magnuson, and Hope Preischel perform in the play Katherine directed, “The Descent.”