On Thursday, September 10th, many freshman and a few sophomores got the chance to get some mentoring from drama teacher Mr. Stanley Swartz along with some experienced one-act members. Auditions for the one-act will start on Monday, Sep. 14th.

“We figured if we gave the newcomers some information and some help, that they wouldn’t be at a huge disadvantage coming into auditions,” Swartz said.

Swartz, a fine arts teacher at Harrisonburg High School and director of  the one-act play, coached the students with voice projection and portraying emotions. The students had to come prepared with a monologue for the workshop as well as for their audition. While the students were able to read from their monologue during the workshop, they will have to have their monologue memorized for the audition.

The first ever one-act workshop gave advice to many students brand new to the HHS one-act.

“They all gave really good advice, some of the things I haven’t even thought of,” freshman Jenna Altaii said. Altaii was grateful for advice on movement and reactions as she had not thought about those things prior to the workshop.

“Yeah, they gave very specific commentary to each person so that we could really know how to best improve our monologue,” freshman Sophia Thomas said.

Freshman Nicholas Gladd was also helped by the workshop.

“Yeah, [ I got help with] lots of stuff with nervousness to help out with the rocking… the nervous rocking, or stuttering, or speeding up,” Gladd said.

With this being the first year for the one-act workshop,  Swartz is very hopeful on having many more for rising students in the future.

“Yes I do [think we will continue them]. I thought today was very successful, and I talked with the group leaders several times about different things and they were all very positive also,” Swartz said.

The actual script they are doing for the one-act is yet to be announced. Auditions for the one-act play will start from 2:45-6:00 after school on Monday, September 14th. The one-acts have hit big in previous years, including winning state champions in last years one-act “The Beggars’ Opera.”

Swartz looks forward to working with the new one-act participants.

“It makes me very hopeful.” Swartz said.