GCHS - ENCORE!

Discovering Grayslake: Unveiling the Stories and People That Make Our Town Unique

ENCORE! represents the extracurricular theater program at Grayslake Central High School. We produce three productions per school year, and the format we have followed for the last handful of years is that we have a fall musical that we work on from the beginning of the school year and perform the weekend before Thanksgiving. This production has over 100 students involved in terms of actors, backstage technicians, and pit band members. We have student leaders in crew heads throughout all productions, and we regularly ask students to step up to be dance captains and to lead their peers. In the winter, ENCORE! has competed in the IHSA events of Contest Play Drama and Group Interpretation as what we call our competition team. These events compete in March, and we have competed since 2016, with the 2019 Group Interpretation show qualifying for State. The contest play involves students building a set, creating props and costumes, and then bringing all of that to a host school where we perform a 40-minute cutting of a play for other competing schools and judges. We switched gears this year to give our students a chance to create everything that comes along with creating a full-length play, and that is the show we are working on right now, Shakespeare in Love, High School Edition. We have 60 students working on this production, with four adult sponsors, and our show will be performed on March 15th-17th at GCHS. Performances will be on March 15th and 16th at 7pm, and on March 17th at 2pm. Tickets can be purchased at boxoffice.d127.org Our third production is our student-directed one acts, and this features seniors teaming up to direct their own short one act plays. This showcase of short plays is performed at the end of April, and is a great opportunity for younger and newer actors to try being on stage. ENCORE! has student leaders that make up the Executive Board, which is nominated by and elected by the Thespians of ENCORE! This Executive Board plans events like the holiday party and end-of-year reception for the company. Thespians are students who have put in 100 or more hours into our program through working on shows, and this includes acting roles. Our students in ENCORE! are some of the more dedicated and hardworking students I have ever had the joy of working with. They are kind, welcoming, and make sure that ENCORE! leaves a legacy that invites students who love theater a place in our school community. Kaitlyn Tagarao: Senior member of ENCORE! executive board, current actor in Shakespeare in Love playing Kit Marlowe Naty Parra: Senior member of ENCORE! executive board, current actor in Shakespeare in Love playing Nurse Hazel Dodds: Senior member of ENCORE! and current Student Production Manager in Shakespeare in Love Andrew Graham: Junior member of ENCORE! and current actor in Shakespeare in Love playing Will Shakespeare.