Drama program creates magic, builds community on shoestring budget
Places everyone! The drama program is diving head first into the school year with One Act competition and variety shows. As drama kids face the spotlight head on, they hope there is enough funding to keep the electricity on. Hoping for set donations and scrambling to get costumes with virtually no budget can slow the train ride to state.
Scotti Thurwatcher, advisor of the Drama Club for the past eight years, can be most directly affected by the lack of funding that drama faces as they put on their One Act and spring plays. The number of shows is defined by his job description.
“I’m both the drama club advisor and the drama director for the plays,” he said. “I’m contracted to put on two plays a year, typically a fall play and a spring play.”
Drama can be an avenue for many to express themselves. More than that, drama can give students a community, somewhere they feel that they belong, which can be hard in the stress of the school day.
“Part of it is knowing myself as a former drama kid and knowing the impact that had on me and the appreciation I have for that. The family aspect of drama can have a big impact on students,” he said. “The best part of my job is if we put together a good fall play, and we make it to state with the One Act. That feeling at sectionals, that energy and exuberance when they announce that Oshkosh West is advancing to state, you just see it through all the students and their excitement.”
Senior Addi Peck is one of the Drama Club Officers this year, and deals mainly with social media. Drama has been a large part of her life as she has moved through high school.
“My official position as a drama officer is PR manager, meaning I manage all of our social media and advertisements. However, as an upperclassman, I wear many hats like costuming and helping with props,” she said. “My favorite part about acting is the community, I have met a lot of my best friends through drama.”
Junior Julia Skinner has been involved in Drama Club at West since her freshman year, but has been acting since she was seven. Skinner is also one of the officers this year.
“I love how good of a community it is and how well we all get along with each other; we all love each other very much…it’s a really accepting community,” she said.
Skinner feels that slipping into a character that is not yourself can be an escape from everyday life.
“I like being able to go into a character and leave reality for a little bit and tell a character’s story,” she said.
Beyond the fun aspects of drama, underfunding can be an issue that they face as they move through the one-act, as well as in general. Thurwatcher realizes the issues that it may cause for drama and how students navigate that in their work as actors.
“I think we all know that drama is underfunded, it’s kinda like the elephant in the room,” he said. “Clearly it affects things, I would love to hire a costume designer, I would love to have the money to afford the materials to build a set. I automatically go into plays thinking simplistic and minimalistic.”
Thurwatcher acknowledges the reasons for the issue of underfunding, as it compares the budgets of surrounding districts.
“You look at some of the programs around Wisconsin, like Appleton, their budgets are astronomical,” he said. “I think part of the problem is people who make those decisions budget wise just don’t have an idea of what it takes to put on a show.”
Thurwatcher explains issues regarding budget and how that affected last year’s play of 67 Cinderellas specifically.
“I’ll use 67 Cinderellas as an example. Last year’s spring play, by the time I bought the rights to perform the show and the scripts, I was already $800 in. The rights and scripts alone for the play we’re doing now was just over $500. When you start to look at those kinds of numbers and the price of materials, it’s tough.”
Senior Angelina Vu is a drama officer this year. She is the Drama Club Treasurer, which means she deals with all things budget, fundraising, and reimbursement. Vu sees firsthand the issues with underfunding, and how hard it is to raise money on a small budget.
“We are severely underfunded right now; our budget got cut significantly. We’re working on barely over $1,000 to run two full shows. It’s ridiculous,” she said. “With funding, we can’t really have a lot of the set pieces we want or the costumes we want because we don’t have the money for them.”
Peck also sees issues with underfunding within drama.
“Drama is incredibly underfunded. The entirety of the one act props, costumes, and sets are donated this year, because we cannot afford to buy anything new. When you put on two shows a year and need to pay for rights and scripts, our budget leaves virtually nothing leftover for the show itself,” she said.
Vu has the responsibility of organizing fundraisers for different plays and things that go in Drama Club throughout the year, and some of the issues that can arise.
“There are so many fundraising things. I was a worker for the haunted house, there’s donut sales. I organized a fundraiser with Kwik Trip car wash cards. We raised like over $2,000 with that,” she said. “The biggest challenge is finding ways that we can raise money. Trying to find a fundraiser that is manageable for everybody and that people are motivated to do is very difficult.”
Contrary to popular belief, Thurwatcher has not been the Drama Club supervisor since the dinosaurs. There have been other supervisors throughout the years. Before Thurwatcher, English teacher Brian Phelps was the director. The arts may struggle with minimal budgets now, but were they even more underfunded when Phelps was the supervisor. In fact, they had no money at all.
“We had zero dollars for the program; we got one thousand dollars for the One Act play because it had entrance plays attached to it, and zero dollars for the Spring Play and Drama Club,” he said. “It had to be self-sustaining, and in Oshkosh, no one comes to see plays so it’s almost impossible to sell enough tickets to support a play and to turn around and put on a play with that budget.”
Finding a solution to underfunding can be tedious, especially for drama teachers and supervisors, who have little to no control of the funding they get.
“But to put it in perspective, we’re not really asking for a huge amount of support, or infrastructure, just enough to do the job,” Phelps said.
Thurwatcher acknowledges the importance of the arts and the possible reason for under representation.
“Most of the time I don’t want to believe that people just don’t want to support the arts,” he said. “I think most people know the importance of it and the impact those experiences can have on students, for those well-rounded opportunities and forms of self expression. The studies show that the more you’re involved in those arts, the more it helps education.”
However, at the end of the day, no matter the funding, drama has the ability to put on two shows every year, whether they have to pay for their own costumes or not.
“I think what the kids do with what they have is just amazing,” Thurwatcher said
By Anika Flores
Published October 30 2023
Oshkosh West Index Volume 120 Issue II