FARRINGTON HIGH SCHOOL "FriendRICH" cast members, from left, include Demitrius Monico, Jannica Cuaresma and Levi Monico.

T-Shirt Theatre is
a good fit at FHS

---

By Shawn "Speedy" Lopes
slopes@starbulletin.com

FriendRICH Where: Farrington High School auditorium When: 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. today Admission: $5 Call: 732-0153

When the Alliance for Drama Education was summoned to tame audiences at Farrington High School in 1982, the school's auditorium resembled more of a mausoleum than a theater. Plagued by repeated disruptions and uncontrollable behavior during school assemblies, the 1,200-seat venue received the equivalent of the death penalty. For three years, no student -- for whom it had been built -- could set foot inside the auditorium, much less view a performance there.

Charged with the daunting task of restoring order to an entire student body, ADE co-founders George Kon and Walt Dulaney implemented a five-day workshop called "Getting Dramatic," in which students were required to study and recite lines from "Romeo and Juliet" onstage before his or her own peers.

If all went as planned, they believed, students would cultivate a greater sensitivity for visiting speakers and performers. "As a result of that, working so thoroughly with all of the students, they gained audience empathy," Kon recalls. "When they sat in the audience seats, they knew what it took to be a performer on stage."

Those words ring true years later for former Farrington students like me, who remember the unnerving yet curiously exhilarating experience of reciting the strange, archaic dialogue of Shakespeare onstage, alone, for classmates.

A marginal student at best, accolades were few and far between for me in high school, but the first-place trophy I received for the group interpretation category in the 1985 FHS Speech Festival is a treasured artifact of my sophomore year. In retrospect, it was the Getting Dramatic program that made such an inconceivable feat seem entirely attainable.

OVER THE YEARS, students striving to take their acting aspirations further have been encouraged to enroll in T-Shirt Theatre, a Farrington theatrical group which stages two performances on campus each year. "FriendRICH," a production that explores the many facets of friendship, will be performed tonight at the school's auditorium. It is written and performed entirely by Farrington students, a number of whom were asked to hole up in the school's library for 12 hours on two consecutive Saturdays last December to come up with the story.

"At first thought, a lot of us reacted like, 'Oh my gosh, 12 hours of straight-up writing?'" according to cast member Levi Monico, a junior. "But we did more than just write. We were given scenarios to give us more of a feeling of what it's like to work together and to communicate friendship in different ways, verbally and nonverbally."

"It wasn't that bad," echoes older brother Demitrius, also a T-Shirt Theatre member, whose contribution, entitled "Brada," made the production's final cut. "We didn't just write; we played games, too."

Sophomore student council chairperson Jannica Cuaresma, an aspiring singer and author of three of the scenes featured in "FriendRICH," agrees. "That was pretty fun," she says. "I'm glad we got to do it."

Another student, Jason Semetara, produced five pieces for the occasion, two of which will be featured in "FriendRICH." Much of his work, he says, is drawn from experience. "When I write, I try as best as I can to put some of the things I know already into imaginary situations," said the 17-year-old senior. "What I liked best about the whole thing is, we shared ideas and wrote together."

THE KEY TO a successful show, they say, are the four P's: projection, pronunciation, poise and personality, all of which have been instilled in the cast through their involvement with T-Shirt Theatre.

"If we're doing our work well, you can hear a pin drop," attests Kon. "But some performing groups have come with material that hasn't been quite well prepared, and the audience eats them up."

He then lets go a chuckle. "They show no mercy. It's not a pushover audience."

Even after high school, says Kon, it's not unusual for a former student to return to accompany ADE on visits to elementary and middle schools in the Kalihi area as a paid company member.

"There are kids who graduate from T-Shirt Theatre who become drama educators with us," he says. "It's particularly rewarding for me to see them go back to Kalihi classrooms because they grew up there and they're returning to give back to their community. That's good to see."

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