The theater department will hold back-to-back $5 shows on April 22. “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing” will be performed at the Hebron 9th Grade Campus’ cafeteria at 7 p.m. with the advanced freshman Duet Scene Showcase right after.

“There’s a plethora of talent [at our school], especially with our freshmen,” head director Scott Crew said. “The only issue would be working on smaller moments of scenes, which has taken a lot of time from us. They’re very talented, but it’s been a learning year for us all.”

“Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing” is the first children’s show Hebron Theater has attempted in many years, if ever, and it follows a boy named Peter as he struggles to choose a memory to write about for a school essay. 

“It’s a different kind of show because it is targeted toward little kids,” sophomore lead Macy Scott said. “The set and props are pretty minimal — we’ve had to overcome challenges in that department. Character-wise, it’s a little weird because I have to embody a 9-year-old boy. Having to [play that] is very interesting.”

After spring break, Crew combined the advanced freshman class with the Theater ll class. Both classes will be performing a series of duet scenes to prepare for future years. 

“I wanted to get to know [the freshmen],” Crew said. “I didn’t get to work with [the freshmen] or JV as much as I wanted to. The stuff I go over in that class has everything to do with the future of this program, and I wanted a chance to start that with them.”

The JV and varsity classes have been working on the same show in hopes of having two casts able to alternate if they ever want to perform at the middle schools. 

“JV has embraced it,” Crew said. “We’ve had a little bit more push back with the varsity version. I think a lot of that is because they’ve done so many shows [that] a lot of them are just really tired. It’s hard to get that motivation.”

While the previous showcase the freshmen did had a lot of input from co-director Chelsey Thornburg, both directors have backed off and allowed it to be a student-led project. 

“The work is going to be a lot more student-driven, which is where we want to get as a department,” Thornburg said. “We’re really encouraging students to fully immerse themselves into their work and own it all. I’m hoping that this is the start of seeing that department-wide.”