It began 80 years ago this week, when Morse High School principal Arthur Scott and Bowdoin College professor Stanley Smith pulled together the state’s first high school drama competition.
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Morse served as host for that inaugural festival, along with Winslow and Orono. That first year, South Portland and Hebron Academy advanced to represent Maine in the New England competition.
With the exception of 1943, the Maine Drama Festival has continued uninterrupted. This week, it returns to its roots.
Morse is one of nine regional hosts for the one-act play festival, which begins Friday and continues Saturday at schools across Maine.
In communities where drama is treated seriously, the play festival signals the coming of spring as much as the state basketball tournament or town meeting.
“We’re pretty excited,” said Sierra Meszaras, a sophomore stage manager at Morse in Bath. “Sports teams get the chance to play against each other all year. But drama kids, we don’t get to experience what other schools are doing until the festival. It’s a celebration of our art and the chance to see what other schools are doing.”
Winners in this weekend’s regional competition advance to the state finals March 25-26. From there, one school from each class — class A for the big schools, class B for the smaller schools — advances to the New Englands.
The festival involves hundreds of students representing almost 80 schools statewide. They are actors, writers, crew members, sound techs, lighting techs, costume designers and their friends.
In addition to Morse, this weekend’s host schools include Westbrook, Noble, Leavitt, Winthrop, Skowhegan, Ellsworth, Mount Desert and the University of Maine at Fort Kent. Nine schools will perform at most sites.
Sessions begin at 6 p.m. Friday and throughout the day and evening on Saturday. All are free and open to the public.
As a regional host, Morse hopes to show the best of its school pride, said Amanda Read, who is serving as festival liaison. It’s her job to ensure the visiting actors and crew members have what they need and feel comfortable.
The competition is serious, and schools work hard to win. But camaraderie is important too, said Tia Bauer, a Morse junior.
“Mr. O’Leary likes to have us forget about the competition part and just love it,” Bauer said, invoking the name of Morse drama director Kevin O’Leary.
Bauer has a lead role in the student-penned play “In Decent Man,” written by Morse student Max Ater. He wrote his play about what he sees as the hypocrisy of organized religion.
“In Decent Man” is set during the Dust Bowl in a desperately dry Midwestern town. Near the end of the play, Bauer’s character, Julia, storms the church to confront Father Walker, played by Ater. Julia accuses Father Walker of corrupting the townsfolk.
In a pitched, angry voice, she commands the stage.
“I will speak! Of the decent and the indecent. Of my husband, a good man, who has been tormented for years by guile by this this evil being!” she shrieks, urging parishioners to break from their leader.
“I will speak of the indecent man — you, Father Walker, who has forever lured us, the innocent, into your nest of sin, by over and over again leading us down the unrighteous path.”
Father Walker attributes her outburst to a drought-induced delusion, but Julia refuses to be silenced.
“It is not in the absence of water, but in the absence of decency where I find voice,” she says.
Increasingly, schools are coming to the regional drama festival with original work. Most schools still present published plays, but more schools are writing their own.
Freeport did it a few years ago with “Conversations in a Box” and took it all the way to the New England regionals. Freeport is back this year with another original play, “You’re Killing Me.”
O’Leary said he wouldn’t have it any other way at Morse. A playwright himself, he teaches playwriting to his students, and will always choose a worthy original script over one written by someone else.
He is confident “In Decent Man” will earn attention, if not awards.
“Max loves to tinker with sexual ambiguity and societal hypocrisy as themes. ‘In Decent Man’ is chock-full of both,” O’Leary said. “We are pushing the envelope of propriety with this play, with the festival, and Morse wouldn’t have it any other way. I have no desire to direct ‘Father Knows Best.’ I’m much more comfortable with ‘Father Had Best Get His Act Together.’
“As Brecht said, ‘Art isn’t nice.’ If you want nice, eat potato chips and watch reality TV. Not for us. Not at Morse. Never. We want the story.”
It’s been that way for 80 years, and counting.
Staff Writer Bob Keyes can be contacted at 791-6457 or at bkeyes@pressherald.com
Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pphbkeyes
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