Kenneth Hart
The Independent
ASHLAND —
On Friday, the day before the nine-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, some theater students at Paul G. Blazer will present a memorial tribute to those who lost their lives on that fateful day.
The Blazer Theatre Arts Society’s 9/11 Memorial Observance will be performed in the Millennium Center on the high school campus. The program will be presented each class period to the social studies and history classes.
The production was written by, and will be performed by, members of the Theatre III and Theatre IV classes, according to Jane Modlin, director of theater at Blazer.
The program will be presented in the format of a news program airing in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, which is interrupted by the bulletin announcing a plane has hit one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, Modlin said.
The script intersperses video footage, actual interviews with firefighters and first responders, transcripts of 911 calls from that day and calls to loved ones from several passengers on the doomed airliners, she said.
The program also will feature remembrances from several Blazer faculty members, presented by the students, as well as other scenes and monologues students felt were appropriate to the story line, Modlin said.
The 9/11 memorial program has become an annual tradition for the theater department, and is something the students feel strongly about and look forward to creating each year, Modlin said.
“We need to keep the memory of this tragedy in the minds of those who were too young to remember what actually happened,” said senior Michael Seagraves, who plays the news anchor of the fictional “GoodMorning New York” program.
The program will conclude with a PowerPoint presentation of the twin towers, the passengers on the planes, the first responders and the people who united in the wake of 9/11. The PowerPoint program was created by senior Anna Lockhart.
“It’s not so much about remembering a tragedy as it as about keeping alive the memories of the heroes, the people who were lost,” Lockhart said.
The cast will rotate throughout the day to allow actors to attend other classes, meaning no two performances will be exactly the same, Modlin said.
Other members of the cast are Katie Castle, Devon Collins, Austin Cross, LT Fugeman, Rebel Hoffman, Alex Lewis, Robyn Milam, Andrew Nunley, Alex Rizzo, Jill Smith, Sarah Stephens, Doug Stevens, Patrick Taft and Shane York.
KENNETH HART can be reached at khart@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2654.
