Yokota Middle School students Aliyahna Showers, left, and Saniah Howell rehease “NC’s Big Night” inside a black-box theater at Yokota Air Base, Japan, Jan. 3, 2023. (Kelly Agee/Stars and Stripes)
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — Students at this airlift hub in western Tokyo are set to debut their first-ever mini-festival of one-act plays, a project that aims to teach them lifelong skills.
A mix of sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders from Yokota Middle School will perform “Poulter Guise” and “NC’s Big Night” starting at 6 p.m. Tuesday at neighboring Yokota High’s Black Box Theater.
Producing a play requires so many skills that students can learn from, drama teacher Jackie Rebok told Stars and Stripes during a rehearsal last week.
“Every core class is represented here,” she said. “There’s science with lighting; there’s very specific electrical things happening, which evolve math; there’s getting together costumes, which brings in a design aspect. And there’s, of course, acting itself and analyzing a character, so that’s literacy.”
A one-act play runs 20-30 minutes, differing from a full-length play, which can last up to two hours.
The first play, “Poulter Guise,” gives a realistic view of the middle-school experience, said eighth-grader Kayden Stohler, 14.
The play riffs on middle school cliches while throwing jocks, Goths and nerds together at Poulter Middle School. The groups must work together to find the culprit when a series of school pranks result in suspended privileges.
“It shows that anyone can be friends with any group of people if you actually reach out and try to make a connection with somebody,” said Stohler, who plays Darren, the bully.
Sixth-grader Aliyahna Showers, 12, plays Miranda, a fashion-obsessed character in “NC’s Big Night,” a play about a fictional rock star and the characters who’ll attend his big concert.
“I thought it would be a really good experience to make new friends,” she said.
These are some students’ first acting roles.
Sixth-grader Jaylen Carpenter, 12, whose family arrived three months ago moved from Wichita Falls, Texas, was involved in basketball and football at his previous school. He plays William, a brainiac and nerd, in “Poulter Guise.”
“I wanted to try new things,” he said. “I’m in a new place, so why not try something I’ve never done before?”
Some students chose to work backstage as crew for the productions. Eighth-grader Rachel Taylor, 14, helps move props between scenes for both plays.
“I enjoy being able to see it but from a different point of view,” she said. “Stage crew is important because without stage crew, the actors would have to move everything, and they would have less time to be focused on their acting.”
The students are split into two casts and will watch each other’s plays.
“This is really important, to watch theater and to be able to critique each other’s performances,” Rebok said.
The fundamental skills learned during the experience should last students a lifetime, she said.
“For some of these kids, it is just about getting up in front of people; that’s that goal,” Rebok said. “Not everyone’s a public speaker; this helps give them that level of confidence to go into ninth grade and think, ‘I can get up and give this presentation. I don’t even have a spotlight on me, this is easy.’”
