“I found the whole process to be fun,” said sophomore Megan Clarke of the podcast recording process performed on the school’s stage with students huddled around microphones in groups of characters.
The “dramatic horror” play, was performed in acts over parts of a three-day period and Clarke — who was the second lead in the play — said she enjoyed being part of a podcast and working on honing her verbal and articulation skills.
“It allowed me to fit into a character more and to use my vocal structure to portray emotions to fit a certain scene,” she said.
Joel Brown, theater manager for Madison High School, said the student-performed podcast of “In the Forests of the Night,” was a first for the school.
“The entire production was rehearsed and recorded in front of a live audience in only three days … using a fast-paced approach,” Brown said.
He said the podcast experiment was designed to give the student actors and actresses “a new and different learning opportunity by focusing only on the vocal acting without the additional burdens of blocking, movement, line memorization, costumes and tech” that are required in a traditional theatrical stage production.
Teresa Crim, an English teacher and assistant director for the podcast, said the school’s first dramatic podcast “went well and we learned a lot.”
“We struggled a little bit with some tech issues … it was a little bit of a challenge and the kids adapted well and they learned a lot about how to speak correctly and how to be more clear (vocally) on stage,” said Crim.
“We are looking to do it (another podcast) again sometime in the next year. We would love to do it again,” she said.
The podcast is available now through May 31 on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other major podcasting platforms, or can be listened to with any web browser at madisonarts.click/podcast.
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