At Ames High, there’s an amazing amount of support for sports. Athletes are constantly being praised for their performance in their sports and are publicly recognized at school. Athletes are also treated with a high amount of respect. However, the drama department almost never gets anything like this.

“People have a lot of respect for the sports coaches, when they make announcements people listen and whatever. But when Mr. Woolery makes announcements people just sort of ignore it or laugh at him,” said Morgan Mulford, a member of drama club and thespian society and a tech for the musical.

Throughout the school, it’s known when sports events are. Everyone is expected to come out and support their school. The schedule is regularly discussed throughout the school, and there are constant announcements from assorted faculty members trying to get the school excited to come out to sports events. No one other than Mr. Woolery and play cast members announce about the play.

On December 8th, 2014, the cast of the winter musical, Once Upon a Mattress, began rehearsing from 6:45-7:45 in the morning. They rehearse Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings. As of right now, about half of the cast also rehearses after school from about 3:10-4:15. Later this month, the entire cast will begin coming in after school and practicing the full show until about 5:00-5:30. It ends up being a total of 31 days that we practice both morning and night. That adds up to approximately 90 hours of practice total. All of this hard work is done for just three showings.

Walking through the hallways, you see numerous different shirts with sports teams on them. The drama department has absolutely no gear for them to represent what they love.

By the gym, there is a glass case with pictures for every sport and special representation for the seniors. Everyone knows how hard the players work to prepare for their games. No one ever seems to see or notice how hard the drama kids work to memorize all of their lines and get their blocking down. “The fact that when you tell someone to come to the play and they say ‘what play?’ is disappointing,” said Olivia Leslie, a member of drama club and thespian society for a year and a tech for the musical.

All in all, I think that the support that Ames High has for sports is awesome. I just wish that we could all get as excited for drama events as we are for all of the sports games. Bring your friends and family out to the next Ames High production. Maybe for the next performance, we can pack the auditorium instead of the gym for once.