Theater students have been working on their Senior Directed productions since April 1, with stagings of The Picnic, Over the River and Through the Woods, Dearly Departed, and Reported. All will be showing on April 30 and May 1, 2026

“Senior Directed is when all of the seniors get a chance to choose a play, cut the script to be 35 minutes or shorter, and we all basically have to kind of compete to get a spot because only four of the shows get chosen each year,” senior Emily Schammel said. “Once the plays get chosen we have to go and cast all of the underclassmen, and this will give them a chance to hopefully have an acting role like a lead acting role if they haven’t yet, and just give everyone a new experience of either acting or directing or doing other technical stuff.”

The main goal for Senior Directed is to give underclassmen opportunities for bigger roles in a production as well as to give seniors a look on the other side of the production curtain.

“I think the hardest part is scheduling, because not only do we have theater students doing it like freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors, but we also have students from other extracurriculars. Right now a lot of girls are in theater and dance and so Spring Show is going on right now, and we don’t really get to have any of those girls in our show for a week.” Schammel said. “There’s also UIL and all of the senior directors this year are in UIL and so are their stage managers and seome of their actors. And since we made it to Region, we’re losing three rehearsals in the upcoming week, which is a week before show. So it’s a little difficult to have all the schedules lined up, but we’re all working with our cast and trying our best to make things work out.”

Though tight scheduling has been keeping students busy, production has still been filled with cast bonding and fun.

“I’ve really enjoyed seeing how a show comes together and how a cast can be bonded because me and my cast have really become friends. It’s really just like a hangout every time we have rehearsal. And it’s a really beautiful thing,” senior Hannah Richardson said. “Thankfully I have a really small cast so we don’t get up to too many shenanigans, but when we do, I always just kind of quiet them down. Normally we do like a focused game right before.”You have to be really, like, set on succeeding for everybody as a whole. It’s a lot of memorization for them and a really short period of time, but yeah. A lot of dedication, very little time.”

Despite the time crunch though, participants and directors still make sure to make this an enjoyable and memorable experience and a chance for underclassmen to flourish.

“I see them step out of their comfort zone and make more decisions. So in our show all of them are really old. So I see them make a lot of  physical decisions with their body to show that they’re older or vocally to show that they’re aging,” senior Marlee Scott said. “We kind of add to the shenanigans sometimes, but usually we tend to just be like, ‘Okay, everybody take a deep breath in and let’s focus. Let’s lock in.’”

Johnson Theatre is open to all those who are interested, ready to open new opportunities and connections.

“It’s honestly a great experience and it’s not limited to theater kids. So to anyone who is still in Johnson in the upcoming years, I would highly recommend auditioning for it,” Schammel said. “It’s just a really fun experience and you get to work with a lot of different people, and it really brings people together and it gets people out of their shell.”