If you want to catch Bow High School’s students’ production of Common Ground, your sole opportunity will be at the New Hampshire Educational Theatre Guild’s festival.
Common Ground is a series of vignettes featuring different types of relationships, said Director Sarah Evans. There will be scenes of friendships ending, friendships beginning, sibling rivalries and more.
Evans said she chose the play because the series of vignettes allowed for a lot of students to participate.
“We have a lot of younger students interested in theater this year, and I was looking for a way to give them a meaningful crash course in scene work,” Evans said. “I found this play and thought it would be perfect – it lets everyone in the cast have a true character and relationship with a scene partner onstage.”
With the NHETG shows, schools take their plays on the road to perform in a series with other schools. That means where they rehearse won’t be the stage they perform on.
Evans said that because they only get about 30 minutes in the host theater to rehearse before the show, they run extra “tech” rehearsals at home, more so than if they were staging the play there.
“Bringing a show to another location is always a little stressful since you’re not at your home location, so it affects what show I choose and especially the set I build,” Evans said.
This will be the fourth time Bow has participated in the NHETG festival. They will perform Saturday at 10:25 a.m. at Concord High School.
Tickets to just the Bow show are $5, or $9 for block one, which includes Common Ground and Memorial High School’s Bad Audition by Bad Actors, at 9:25 a.m. You can also attend the whole day of six shows for $20.
Bow High School will also be hosting the state festival April 6 and 7.
“I actually really enjoy the day,” Evans said. “And my kids do too because they get to show their work to other kids and watch the hard work of other students who love doing the same things they do.”
