This year’s Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild’s Middle School Drama Festival is being hosted at the Middle School on Saturday, May 3.
Lynnfield’s entry into the competition is “Sonder,” an original play written by two eighth graders, Nora Hutter and CC Ragalevsky.
“It’s an adaptation of the Greek myth about Echo and Narcissus,” Hutter said. “There are three storylines, one being a rebellion against the higher gods in Mount Olympus by the lower gods.”
After writing the first draft of the play in a month, the pair made a lot of edits and tweaks with the help of Lynnfield Middle School Drama Director Shay Wainwright.
“We had a read-through in December so we could see how the kids handled reading their script, and that’s when we made the final decision,” Wainwright said. “I think the biggest challenge is making sure that when you have 20 kids on stage, each of them feels important. So, I go through and ask them individually to come up with their character’s names, consult on their costumes, and consult on their props.”
The result is the students become more connected with their characters, something that becomes heightened by the play being a product that is “uniquely ours,” as Wainwright put it.
She first had a student ask to write their own play for the Dramafest last year, when Patrick Malone created “Thesmophoria” for the 2024 festival. Now a high schooler, Malone is in the midst of his second original production with “Paranormal.”
“Patrick showed us we could write our own play and gave us the confidence to do it,” Ragalevsky said. “If I get the opportunity to make another one in the future, I’d do it.”
Ragalevsky and Hutter were inspired by their love for the Percy Jackson book series, which brings Greek mythology to a contemporary, young-adult setting.
Similarly, “Sonder” has a light-hearted, comedic tone, with the pair pulling funny moments from their own life and mixing it into the dialogue, especially for the ditzy nymphs who help to kidnap Zeus.
This jovial tone has made the rehearsal process fun for Ragalevsky and Hutter, who are assistant directors, as well as Wainwright in her direction of the production.
“During notes, we’ll give everyone a few things they can clean up with their performance,” Ragalevsky said.
“We’ve been in past performances for Dramafest, but this is definitely a lot different, but really exciting,” Hutter said.
For Wainwright, she’s looking forward to the connections and culture-building formed during the event, where kids from around the region who are passionate about the performing arts will be put into one place.
“These kids are really forming lifelong connections here,” she said. “I know there are people even in Hollywood who will see people on set who they first met at Dramafest.”
