The Oakdale High School theater program is known best for their spring plays, but this October, the class toured elementary schools, along with the preschool program here at Oakdale, to showcase Elephant and Piggie’s We’re in a Play. The show combines a number of Elephant and Piggie books, by Mo Willems, to make a musical. Juniors Ariel Tembi and Zolany Robinson both play squirelles and had fun in this new experience.

Mr. Michael Copen started the theater class when the school opened and continues to teach it. Tembi recounts his reasoning: “He wanted to explore different types of theatrical programs and wanted us to learn how to do different types of techniques in theater, so he chose a children’s show because it’s way different from other productions we’ve done at Oakdale.”

Tembi, who has been in theater since her freshman year, also claims it was an interesting process. “It was a lot of hard work, a lot of memorization, a lot of coordination, especially for the squirrels who usually say the same lines at the same time, it was really fun though.”
She continued, “We started in September, that was the first audition and callback. Then we did around 12 shows this weekend plus the four elementary and preschool shows.”

It all proved worth it in the end, once the cast was finally in front of the kids. “Both the Oakdale preschool kids and the elementary school students seemed to enjoy the show and engage with it,”says Tembi.

Robinson has been in theater for as long as she could remember: “I started performing in kindergarten.” She views the theater program and the way Copen runs it as calculated.

Robinson goes on to add, “After he made his final decisions for the cast, he double-casted the show so that our lead characters wouldn’t have too much on their plates. [He did this] since we performed 15 shows in total, [so] then we had rehearsals [and], vocal and staging rehearsals for a month and a half.”

As the years go by, the Oakdale Theater Program continues to explore more theatrical techniques and expand their understanding on the art of theater. Tembi enjoyed doing a play made for kids. “Mr Copen chose a children’s show because it’s way different from other productions we’ve done at Oakdale… He wanted us to do a kids show just to get us experienced in other types of plays and branch out.”