Fine Arts Festival, Waupaca High School stage play
By Angie Landsverk
The Waupaca Fine Arts Festival and Waupaca High School Drama Department will co-produce an original play written by a retired WHS English teacher.
“Two Flags For Marco” takes the stage at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 20 through Saturday, Feb. 22, and also at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 23, in the high school’s Performing Arts Center.
Pat Phair wrote the play. Monica Reeves and Amy Holterman will co-directed it.
Reeves is an English teacher at WHS.
She has directed about 25 all-school plays and worked with Phair for more than 20 years.
They collaborated on numerous artistic ventures.
Holterman teaches English and social studies at Waupaca Middle School.
She directs the middle school’s fall play and has worked with Waupaca Community Theatre.
Holterman directed one of its dinner theaters a few years ago and has also directed some of its summer musicals for children.
“The story is about a man who was in World War II and became a POW (prisoner of war),” Phair said. “He doesn’t think his story is interesting.”
Holterman said the story is based on how there were German POWs in Wisconsin in the mid 1940s.
“They helped harvest the crops,” she said.
Reeves said Phair wanted to bring out that knowledge.
Phair says he has always been fascinated with that timeframe.
He started working on the project about 1 1/2 years ago.
Generational bonding
“It’s an idea I had in my head for some time,” Phair said. “We all know people in the Greatest Generation.”
People from that generation are slowly passing away, he said.
Another main character in the play is a young man with autism.
“I used a student who’s a bit of an outlier because I want the audience to recognize we have people with autism around here,” Phair said. “The story bonds a 17-year-old high school student with a World War II veteran.”
Reeves said, “They try to help each other understand life, priorities, how to get along in the world.”
Other characters in the play also had various experiences with World War II.
“They lived through it, and a high school student is hearing their experiences,” Holterman said.
Reeves said the story goes back and forth, with past and present scenes.
“It’s really a story of relationships,” Phair said.
Reeves’ class read the play last spring, and there was a staged reading in May.
Holterman said that is when it morphed into being a co-production with community theatre.
Reeves said she has had many adult cameos in the past.
For a play like “Two Flags For Marco,” having older people play the older characters makes it more realistic, she said.
About half of the cast is from the community theatre, with the other half high school students, Holterman said.
“We’re sharing this very well,” Reeves said.
She noted many students are also helping with the technical aspects of the show.
Reeves said working with Holterman has been a “very positive experience.”
The cast did a read through on Jan. 2, and rehearsals began soon after that.
They are in need of various items for the show.
Those who have World War II-style Army clothing or military stretchers are asked to contact Reeves at 715-258-4131.
Tickets
General admission tickets may be purchased at the high school office, beginning Monday, Feb. 3.
The price is $10 for adults and $5 for students.
Tickets are also available at the door.
Veterans and active military receive free admission when presenting military ID at the door.
This is the second time one of Phair’s original plays is being presented at WHS.
“Photo Shop” was the all-school play in 2013.
That one was set in a Jewish photo shop in Poland during 1939.
Now another one of Phair’s plays is set to premiere.
“What’s exciting about this production for me is to see the collective effort between the older community theatre people and the drama students,” he said. “I’m hopeful things like that can continue.”