Some of them dressed in green and sang about waiting for their true love to rescue them, some of them discussed friendships between men and women while eating sandwiches and all of the Drama Queens took the stage in their latest performance.

The Drama Queens held their final performance of the year in the Blackbox Wednesday, May 17, during lunch. The show was only open to upper school and faculty, as it contained some explicit language and mature subject matter.

The Drama Queens are comprised of the Theatre Arts: Intermediate, Theatre Arts: Advanced and Advanced Study: Theatre classes. For their past performances, theatre teacher Tracy Poverstein gave the Drama Queens more criteria for their scenes. However, they were able to choose their own media for this show, and they selected a wide variety of TV shows, films and musicals.

Marin Terry (’23) performed two songs during the show: “Apex Predator” from the musical “Mean Girls” and “All That Jazz” from “Chicago.” One of Terry’s favorite parts of the planning was seeing people becoming excited and passionate about the scenes they selected.

“Oftentimes, in this course, it is more of a class, so we’re given pieces that our teacher, Ms. Pov, knows will be difficult for us and will challenge us that we can work on,” Terry said. “That doesn’t necessarily mean ones that we would choose for ourselves even if they would be good for us, so it was nice to have [a show] where it was just what we wanted to do.”

Similarly, Sadie Long (’24) said she enjoyed being able to experiment with comedic acting in this performance, as she had previously only worked on serious scenes. She and Azel Al-Kadiri (’23) performed an edited version of the famous diner scene from the classic film “When Harry Met Sally.” Long shared some highlights from working on the scene with Al-Kadiri.

“I love working with Azel. The first time we’d worked together was ‘Sense and Sensibility,’ and she’s just an amazing scene partner. Whenever she’s rehearsing, she’s totally in it, and so that was just a lot of fun,” Long said. “Finding the comedic moments I really enjoyed because Harry is just a really playful character. At least in that scene, he doesn’t take himself or anything else very seriously, so that was pretty fun because I’d also never really done anything that even edged onto the comedic side or a comedic role.”

Juniors Megan Kelley and Ella Grey performed a scene from the HBO Max show “The Last of Us.” Kelley played Riley, and Grey played Ellie, the main character. Kelley said they had limited time to rehearse together, but she enjoyed working with Grey, as they are close friends and were portraying best friends in the scene.

“It was super fun to work with Ella. We met with Ms. Pov a few times, [and] she told us what to think about: how it was hard for Riley to say goodbye to Ellie and all of those underlying emotions. In the show … they’re in love with each other almost, and so to explore that while also keeping their friendship, because they are best friends, too,” Kelley said. “It was really cool to get notes from Ms. Pov. It’s always helpful, and then Ella and I would talk through it — talk about how we wanted to stage things and also form a relationship that portrayed that.”

Long said she joined the Drama Queens and found a passion for theatre because she watched a Drama Queens show. Both she and Terry said they hope the Drama Queens inspire students to take risks and explore new interests outside of their comfort zones, as they might find something they are very passionate about.

“When you’re an actor, it’s way too easy to tell yourself that there’s one kind of thing you can do, force yourself into a typecast,” Terry said. “But if you really try, there’s probably other options out there for you if you really want it, so just go for it.”