Senior Stuff: A Guide To The End Of Senior Year by Benji Boyd, Editor-in-Chief, Senior
With the end of the school year coming up fast, it seems like there’s a new senior-themed event going on every day. Here’s a list of coming and ongoing attractions so you can keep track.
Senior Project
Every year, seniors are given the option to spend the fourth quarter of the school year working on a project of their choice. The options are endless – internships, teacher’s assistant positions, public works projects, volunteer work – so long as students stay in touch with their senior project mentor, document all their work, and hit the required number of hours. Senior project students are allowed to drop classes for the fourth quarter, so long as they are passing them and in good standing with detentions, make-up work, and other considerations. AP students, however, must continue to attend their AP blocks until the AP tests are over. Luckily, AP testing begins on May 5, and almost all the tests will follow over the next two weeks. Then, seniors will be free to come and go from the school as they choose and devote their full attention to their chosen activities. Seniors will present their projects and accomplishments with poster boards on the May 30th Gallery Walk, in the MHS field house.
Senior Assassin
If you’ve seen high schoolers chasing one another around with water-guns, you’re likely not the only one. The hunt is on all over town as seniors compete to win Senior Assassin, a class-wide manhunt with a pooled prize of over $2,400. To participate, seniors had to pay $15 and obtain their own water-gun. They received their ‘targets’ on the night of Sunday, April 25, and had until the following Friday to ‘assassinate’ them with a squirt of water. Whoever succeeds in getting their target and avoids being found by their assassin will move onto the next round, where they’ll receive a new target. The last one standing will win the jackpot. While the game can get pretty competitive, rules about where and when it can be played prevent people from being soaked at home, school, work, or senior projects. However, front lawns, parking lots, and certain school-affiliated events are fair game. So if you see any soaking teenagers, offer them your condolences for their loss of the grand prize.
Senior Sunrise
While the seniors look forward to finishing their classes in anticipation of senior week, the juniors have something else on the horizon. Senior Sunrise is a misleadingly titled tradition for juniors to celebrate the dawn of their senior year on the first day of classes after the seniors are gone. On the morning of June 2, expect to be woken up by screams and cheers as juniors drive around town before school. Then, they’ll take to the MHS halls in their custom Senior Sunrise T-shirts to see how it feels being the oldest students in the school.
Senior Week
While the juniors are settling into class after Senior Sunrise, the seniors will be getting ready to kick off their final week of events at MHS. Senior Prom is on Tuesday, June 3, at the Boston State Room. The red carpet walk next to the MHS Piper Field will begin at 5:00, and prom will run from 6:30 to 10:00 PM. The following night, Wednesday, June 4, seniors receiving school-affiliated scholarships will be invited to the field house to receive them on Scholarship Night. Thursday, seniors will return to school at 10:00 AM for a mandatory graduation rehearsal, followed by the Senior Walk, during which seniors will walk through the halls of the Village and Vets schools in their cap and gowns to say goodbye to life as a Marblehead student. Finally, graduation will be held on Friday, June 6, at 6:00 PM, back at the MHS Piper Field.
School Is In Session by Evan Eisen, Junior
Last week at Marblehead High school was certainly an interesting one to say the least. Many students were either away or chose not to attend the make-up days that were caused by November’s teachers strike. There was a moderate amount of students that decided to attend the make up days during what would have been February vacation. Many students and staff expected even less people to show up last week as more families tend to go away on vacation compared to those in February. As it turned out they were correct.
After a nice and relaxing four day weekend me and other students woke up early and made our way to school. Usually there is the headache of trying to get to school on time when Humphrey street is always backed up. It wasn’t the case this time as there was no traffic and I didn’t have to rush to get to class on time. The school was eerily quiet with hardly any students wandering the halls on the way to classes. Throughout the day all of my classes had less than 10 students show up so for some of them we were allowed to do what we wanted. Some of my other classes had us doing fun activities and doing some review of previous material we had done.
Lunch was similar to my classes as the crowded cafeteria was now almost entirely deserted. It was nice to be able to enjoy my lunch in silence and be able to actually hear what my friends were saying to me. Another benefit from these make-up days was that I had no homework or other work to do so I was able to spend time talking to people I know and those that I don’t regularly converse with.
On Thursday it was even worse. There were even more students who decided not to show up with around 5 kids in each of my classes. In my physics and forensics classes it was only me and two other people. Like the other day it proved to be pretty uneventful as well with not much work being done.
While it wasn’t the ideal vacation any of us had in mind compared to the possibility of going to school on Saturdays I’m glad that it was during vacation week. I enjoyed being able to come to school and not have to stress or worry about certain work or tests and be able to just have fun with my friends. Would I have liked to be on a beach somewhere far away in a place like the Bahamas or Florida? Yeah probably, but it felt nice to “wake up and smell the roses” in a sense. Hopefully this type of situation will never happen again, but if there is anything I will take away from this experience it’s that I probably shouldn’t have cancelled those tickets I had to go on a Caribbean cruise.
A Student’s Review of Hadestown: Teen Edition at MHS by Nassa Warab, Freshman
One April 11, 12, and 13, the Marblehead High School Drama Club performed the teen teen edition of famous broadway musical Hadestown. With an impressive turn out for all three shows and tons of positive feedback from students at the high school and regular Marbleheaders alike, the show did not disappoint.
The performance starred the miraculous Anya Kane as Eurydice and the talented Charlie Seliger as Orpheus. The play follows the two lovers’ journey as they try hard to get back to each other, and ends in a heartbreaking tragedy. The story is narrated by Hermes, Greek god of messengers and travelers, who was played flawlessly by senior Brady Weed.
The levels of effort that went into this show were incredibly impressive. From cast to crew, it’s easy to tell that every member of the MHS Drama Club was passionate about this project. The set of the show consisted of a rotating platform, which added insurmountable levels of magnificence to the performance, and a massive pit above the stage lined with deep red curtains that complimented the entire set up. In the pit was a live orchestra, which gave the show the perfect amount of realness and dramatic effect.
As well as the sound and stage set up, the lighting details of the show were equally impressive. The control of the dim lighting helps the audience regulate their emotions towards what is happening on the stage, and truly encapsulates the grim feel that the entire show seems to carry with it. An especially notable detail was the flashing lights above the stage that occurred when the main antagonist Hades, portrayed by Theo Hains, referred to electricity. It added another immersive factor to the ominous energy of the entire scene.
Now, for the center of the performance, the actors. The main stars of the show presented the crowd with mesmerizing vocal talent and very impressive range. Izzy Scogland, who played the role of Persephone, especially uses an impressive technique to portray their character in an incredibly unique way while still maintaining the original essence of the role. Their interpretation of the role adds much to the show and says more about the characters that Persephone interacts with. The three fates, played by Sadie Newburg, Lucy Key and Scarlett Kindle also add a haunting and devastating chorus to the show that foreshadows the devastating ending of the play.
To add to the scene, the ensemble cast does an excellent job at creating an intense atmosphere that draws the viewers in. Their especially impressive synchronized choreography adds to the hivemind-like nature of all of Hades’ workers, sending a message to the audience that tells us what it’s like to be in the factories of the underworld.Unfortunately, since every performance of the Hadestown is now completed, there will likely be no more reenactments of it for a very long time. My hopes are that someday in the future the Marblehead High School Drama Club will decide to recreate their masterpiece in a new and improved way. Overall, the show was an exceptionally fantastic enactment of Hadestown and really proved the talent and passion of all the cast, crew, and music department at Marblehead High School.