Over the past few years, the theater program at Kennebunk High School has grown tremendously. The school has seen increasing enrollment in new classes as well as the cast and crew for shows. The cast and crew for the fall musical, Spamalot, might be the largest we have seen in a while. With all that said, does the community recognize the importance of the theater program?
Kennebunk is one of the only schools in the state of Maine that has actual acting, dance, and technical theater classes. Most schools only have an after-school program for theater and might have a base-level acting class, like Foundations of Theater or Technical Theater that are categorized as a visual art rather than a performing art. We have several different theater classes, a drama club, and fantastic shows, but no one besides the people in the theater department seem to support it. Despite what seems like a robust program, the district often neglects to promote the arts programs.
More promotion of our incredible visual and performing arts program from RSU 21 could help the resurgence of the relevancy of theater at Kennebunk High School. Ticket sales haven’t been good in recent years. The theater can seat up to 400 people, but the most tickets we’ve sold for a single show is 140. Even though we do massively popular musicals like Newsies and Anastasia, we can’t seem to sell enough tickets to turn a profit. Newsies “sold out,” but this was only because it was during Covid and we could only sell a fourth of the seats. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, last year’s spring play, was the first show to turn a profit, but not a large one. This is because we didn’t have to pay for the rights of the show, which is one of the most expensive parts of production.
The middle school’s theater program seems to be thriving. They performed their production of Shrek at the high school last year and sold out every seat with surplus seating for all three shows. Every time I have gone to one of the middle school’s shows, almost every seat has been filled. High schoolers come to support the middle schoolers to try to recruit them to do theater when they enter high school, but those middle schoolers rarely come to see the high school productions.
The theater department was its most successful when Mr. Lewia was the theatrical director, and he was one of the driving forces for building the new theater. After he left, the program floundered through heavy turnover and was then hit by Covid. Due to these circumstances, the program was unable to continue the success after Mr. Lewia’s incredible guidance. In 2018, the theater department hired our current director of the Theater and Dance program, Mr. St. Pierre. He was originally hired to only teach dance, but immediately came on to teach theater as well. In 23-24 his role is full-time with two dance classes, four theater classes, and after school theater offerings.
The theater department has been in a long recovery. During this time, the theater lost its relevance to the community. Even now, it is being judged by past events, and we can’t expect it to go back to what it was before; we have to embrace a new vision.
In his five years here, Mr. St. Pierre has built the theater back up to something great, he wants more people to come to see the shows and the hard work of students. He said, “It would be nice to have the same number of parents and students at the shows that come to the football games.” It seems like football will always be relevant throughout high school, but it would be valuable if theater got some of the same recognition. The theater department isn’t fully irrelevant, but it has come a long way in the post-Covid years. Hopefully, you the reader, will rediscover the abundant riches our student productions offer to our community.
