theHword.com

TheHWord.com is featuring several posts related to a theatre production being presented by the Hastings Junior Community Theatre (HJCT).

This group will be performing “Higher” and “Illinois Jane and the Pyramid of Peril” today and tomorrow (June 4 and 5) at 7 pm at the Hastings Community Theatre in Good Samaritan Village. A special family matinee of “Illinois Jane” only is at 2 pm on Saturday.

This post contains three reports. Enjoy!

Confused Pirate at the Theatre

By Tanner Peshek

So we’ve been working on these plays for a while now and I really enjoy doing them.

To be honest I haven’t had as much time acting as everyone else involved has, but everyone has been nothing but nice. I really feel we’ve made a small family in the short time that we’ve been working on these shows together.

I’m only in one of the two shows and I haven’t seen much of “Higher” but I know those guys are working just as hard on that show as we are on “Illinois Jane.”

My character is really fun acting out because he’s a very confused pirate and just plain goofy, which is the most fun kind of characters to get. This whole play is a hilarious spoof of “Indiana Jones” (which I love by the way, so it just makes it that much more fun).

Its nothing but fun the whole way through so I hope everyone comes to see both shows and have a great time in doing so.

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Tanner Peshek is a 15-year-old addition to the HJCT crew this year and really enjoys all of the new people he’s met. He was nervous about his first show with HJCT, but soon found those fear unnecessary. He has really enjoyed working with the students and student director as well as Chris Cottam.

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No ‘Drama’ at HJCT

By Caitlin Kalvelage

My experience with Hastings Junior Community Theatre has been an awesome one.

There are always fun times along with learning new things and techniques every single time I go. I have already had some encounters previously with HJCT, and they’ve been great. Right now I am in a wonderfully written and directed play called “Higher”.

Now coming in as a little freshman, this theatre program has helped me meet new people and find my way around the art of theatre in Hastings.

One of the reasons I love HJCT is because there are no hierarchies. With some of my previous theatre experiences there has been a huge issue with age, which created many obstacles for me especially. Here you get roles because you deserve them, which is one more reason I love it.

Another reason is that in this program, there is absolutely a 100 percent absence of cliques and, well, drama. I think that’s one of HJCT’s main goals, is to have none of those problems you can get in other theatres. It’s strictly speaking, a learning theatre.

Someplace you go to learn more about this art and to get some experience. My times with HJCT have satisfactorily brought me all of these things. I feel like it’s just a great program, and I have definitely learned a lot from it. I always look forward to HJCT’s productions because they are just great experiences!

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Caitlin Kalvelage is interested in track music softball drinking coffee and eating gummy-bears.

She is a first time participant of a show with HJCT and is enjoying herself quite a lot.

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Performing can open your mind

By Brenden Nierman

The performing arts in general have a wondrous way of shaping a person into a completely different person, whether they be public speaking, dancing, opera or my personal favorite, theatre.

I grew up in Harvard, a tiny town of barely one thousand people. Because I grew up in such a town I had virtually no opportunities to get involved in the theatre the way I would have liked while growing up. The only chance to get involved in such a way in a small town, such as Harvard, is the school play. And there is only one a year. So, naturally, I was unsatisfied with my paltry experience in theatre.

When I heard about Hastings Junior Community Theatre and the Summer on the Stage program, I was raring to go. This is my second year participating in the program acting in my third and fourth plays. I have also been involved in two of Hastings Community Theatre’s regular performances over the last year and the difference that I have noticed in myself is astounding.

Before getting involved with the community theatre here I was an extremely introverted person with a closed mind and personal space issues. Now, after four full and two half shows I have significantly changed. I am still introverted, but not near to the degree to which I was.

My mind has been opened, and I have virtually no personal space issues anymore! In short, HJCT played a major part in curing me of being an intensely boring person.

About the author: Christine Cottam

Christine Cottam’s life is regularly interrupted with bursts of spontaneous song and dance. She teaches voice in her privately owned Studio C and is a music and theatre student at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Christine is the chair for the Hastings Junior Community Theatre where she also directs summer theatre for teens. She lives with her husband, two kids, two cats, two frogs, and one freakishly fast snail.