Falcon Theatre put on a personal record-breaking four main stage shows in their fall season: “Our Town,” directed by senior Brooke Boyer, “Puffs: The Play,” directed by Craig Robertson, “Romeo and Juliet,” directed by Lance Morse and Tre Jon, and “Big Fish,” directed by Amanda Brundrett. In its first year, it’s estimated that the theatre department put on only one fall show. In recent years, that number rose to two. This years lineup so far has been impressive, and there’s even more to come in the spring season.
Robertson explained that the “main factor” behind the impressive line up of shows is due to “more student interest.”
This year’s UIL one act competition play “Death of a Salesman,” directed by Lance Morse competes at the district contest on Friday, March 20. Along with the one act play, the spring show “The Book of Everything,” performs at 7 p.m. from March 5 through 7. It is directed by Annie Robertson, Craig Robertson’s wife, or as the students in the department call her, Lady Rob. These two spring productions bring the total number of main stage productions for the 2019-2020 school year to a whopping six shows.
“This isn’t a norm. We’re not necessarily going to do six main stage shows every year, but we’ll find ways to serve the kids, the students, all the time,” Robertson said.
Although there will be the same number of spring shows this year as there was last year, the department strives to allow as much opportunity for involvement as possible for its growing number of interested students.
“The year before I came they had one show, and then last year Treasure Island was a bigger cast, and this year I think the cast is even a little bigger than last year’s.”
There are many more in-class shows to come in the spring as well.
“We are doing more projects in class than we did last year,” Robertson explained.
These student-directed class plays will all perform and compete against one another in a one-act play style competition in April. The two top shows will move on to compete in the KISD Class Play Festival in May.
On whether there’s ever been a year at this school with more productions, Robertson explained that “because we have more faculty now than they had at the beginning, more teachers, [and] more student involvement,” there’s been more school productions in the 2019-2020 school year than in years past.
This department’s monumental year is only the beginning of the bright future of Falcon Theatre.