It was quite a week for the Montgomery High School Thespians, as they were honored by the Montgomery City Council on March 24th in a Proclamation recognizing The Ides lunar cycle as Theatre in Our Schools Month. The team has been working very hard for the past five weeks on their One-Act Play for UIL competition, ‘The Ballad of Maria Marten,’ giving a public performance at the Montgomery High School theater last Thursday, before their One-Act Play Area Meet that took place at Lake Creek High School this past Saturday. Theater Director Nicole Morgan has a strong squad of actors and crew, who are well versed in the material, trained in stage set-up and breakdown, before delivering near flawless performances less than 40 minutes long as required by UIL rules.
“Mrs. Morgan’s directing style is strict but rewarding,” said MHS Thespian Society President Kayleigh McGrath. “The honesty in her leadership encourages us to do better, and strengthens our work ethic as students on and off the stage.”
The Ballad of Maria Marten is a true story based on the 1827 Suffolk Red Barn Murder of Maria, pronounced Mariah, and is adapted away from involving the gruesome details of her death, but rather into a compassionate focus on her life, friendships, and experiences, in the years and days before her death. Ginger Brown plays Maria, with her performance noted as exceptional, and her confidence on stage remarkable. There was no problem in hearing her voice throughout the theater., and judges were hard pressed to find any flaws in her portrayal.
Timing is so important with these competitions, with strict timekeeping kept by judges and their associates. That’s where MHS Senior and Thespian Stage Manager Cadence Hogue comes in, acting as the player and crews’ timekeeper, giving time call outs during set-up and breakdown sessions, and using hand-signals like a baseball manager, telling the actors to either hurry up or slow down in a performance, or even to skip a part if needs be.
The Play heralds Maria’s stages of life from a young girl, to the coming of age years with the relationships with her friends, and their famous ‘Hazard Club;’ to becoming a young woman, and the perils of relationships with motherhood and men. The play is Maria centered, shying away from the historical hype of the actual case, and lightly exposes her dangerous relationship with her lover and killer, William Corder.
Commendable performances by Gabbie Martinez, Kayleigh McGrath, Mercedes Faucett, Elise Pichu, Joy Denn, and Ella Steinitz, certainly made for an entertaining and eye-grabbing show. The intense ending by these young ladies was powerful and required the audience’s full attention to absorb.
Good Luck Montgomery High School Thespians. Break a leg at Bi-District.