By Isabel Vorst | Intern
Last year, four freshmen reimagined their passion for high school theater and decided to create a space for it within the Honors Residential College as an official club.
The HRC Drama Society performed “Tartuffe,” their second play as an official Baylor club, on March 29 for over 300 students.
The club’s priorities are having fun and flexible scheduling, according to Oklahoma City sophomore Jay Abbott.
“The inspiration came from me and three other freshmen last year, who all did some kind of theater in high school and wanted to keep that up because we really enjoyed the performing arts,” Abbott said. “We wanted to figure out a way to do it that wasn’t as demanding as being an actual theater student.”
As a new club, the group was surprised that their shows have reached larger audiences, according to Marietta, Ga., sophomore Shelby Grace Sparrow.
“We asked for 250 chairs to be put up,” Sparrow said. “Every single chair was filled, and there were people gathered in the back. So we probably had close, not quite, but close to 300 people at the end, which is massive for an amateur production of a play that’s completely student-led.”
Advertised with CAE credit, “Tartuffe” reached a far larger audience than just HRC students.
The group plans to continue producing one play a year in the spring, allowing people with all sorts of theater backgrounds to try acting.
“We hope that this tradition shows people that the arts are for everybody,” Abbott said. “Everybody can be an artist, act or direct or participate [in] some kind of work of art, even if they feel like they’re an amateur. Plenty of our actors don’t have any previous experience, but we welcome all.”
Middletown, R.I., freshman Thomas Miller had his first theater experience through the HRC Drama Society.
“I don’t have to do a whole major to get into a play, which I think is awesome, because the barrier to entry in a normal drama is high,” Miller said. “If you want to get a role with a lot of lines, you have to be really good. The HRC Drama Society really gives people an experience to act that they wouldn’t have otherwise, and it’s open to teaching people as they go.”
Houston sophomore Susannah Reavis is the director of the HRC Drama Society and one of the original founders.
One of her favorite things about the group is that they can put together a high-quality show attended by hundreds, despite the fact that none of the members are theater majors, and about half of them have no acting experience prior to college.
“These are just people who love theater and devote many hours outside of their regular schedule to the show,” Reavis said. “I love that it’s entirely student-led. You can really tell how passionate everyone is about it and how much fun we all have.”
An incredible amount of work goes into the behind-the-scenes work, given this is purely extracurricular and student-run.
“A lot of little things fall on our shoulders, like making programs, posting flyers, finding a tripod so we can record the show, making intermission playlists and making sure there are costume, hair and makeup people, and that they know what to do and when to be there and where to be,” Reavis said.
The HRC Drama Society wants to emphasize to students that art is worth doing for its own sake, as well as prompt engagement with timeless questions that develop the soul.
Reavis said that the club selects classics to perform, partially because they are on a limited budget and seek theater from the public domain.
Aside from production, the moral questions represented in the plays mirror the HRC’s broader objective.
Demonstrating to students how art engages these timeless questions not only exemplifies the Honors College mission, but also the aim of Baylor education as a whole, showing students the value of art through a Christian lens.
“We hope that people seriously engage with our play and that they realize the value of art, but also that they have a lot of fun and that they laugh a lot,” Abbott said.
