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The Orange High Creative Writing class has published a collection of stories and poetry. Teacher  Brooke Smith taught them what format to write in and what makes a story entertaining. She also helped them find inspiration for the stories found in the book. The title of the book is The Basement Chronicles: An Anthology of Brilliant Works from the Orange Creative Writers.

It is for sale for $8 on lulu.com. A link to the page has been posted to purchase the book on the OHS homepage as well.

Alexis Prebula, Tiffany Connolly, and Katelyn Baity are three of the students found in the Creative Writing class, and these students will tell you first hand that making this book possible wasn't easy. These ladies, along with nine classmates created the 102 page book this semester in their first period Creative Writing II/ III class.

The classroom the class is held in is in the basement of the 300 wing, hence the book's title. Each student contributed his or her best work to the anthology. Stories range from thriller to comedy.

 

Update 5/14: The performance raised $81 in donations. The drama department and creative writing class each received half of the profit. The drama department will use the money to pay for the 2013-2014 play productions, and the Creative Writing class will use the money to pay for their anthologies.

Original Story: Four student-written and student-directed plays will be presented on May 13 at 6:00 pm in the OHS auditorium. Admission is free, but there’s a suggested donation of $5. The performance is called Epic Episodes, and proceeds will go to the creative writing and theatre classes. The plays were written by Creative Writing II students and directed by students in Theatre IV. Actors and actresses in the plays are from Theatre III and Theatre IV.

The first play, Not My Cup of Tea, was written by Maggie Cummings, Haylee Burton, and Aly Cavedo. “I think [the fact that students are performing my play] is kind of cool. Plays are a lot harder to write,” said Cummings.

Not My Cup of Tea features two brothers, Emmett (Zane Davie) and Blake (Dylan Perry), who both have strokes of good luck after drinking from cups of tea. Lauren Asbury, Paige Wilcox, and Damien Thomas play smaller roles. William Adams directed the play.

Adams said that he has a “laid back” directing style. “I let them read through it... then I do blocking. [I] let them do what they need to do.” Adams believes in “actor’s freedom.” The slogan Adams created for the play is, “Two brothers come to a seemingly unimportant choice in life, but it changes everything.”

The second play, The Choices We Make, was written by Alexis Prebula, Brittany Hester, and Katelyn Baity. Abby Peel is the play’s director. The play stars Nycol Lyons and Wilcox. Many other people in the class are extras. Some male names in the play were changed because the Theatre III and IV classes have few male actors, but Prebula said that “there’s no problem with that.” “I don’t care,” Baity added.

The play is about a girl named Melanie (Wilcox) who is bullied by a group of students. One student, Brianna (Lyons), defends her against the bullies, but after an unexpected event occurs, Melanie is left with no friends.

Peel said, “Directing a play to me is like when you know your house and you get up in the middle of the night to get ice cream... and you walk into a coffee table. It’s a learning experience and I’m excited that I’m learning.” She called directing “unnerving.” Her directing style is “learn[ing] as you go.” Asked to summarize her play in one sentence, Peel said, “Bullying is bad.”

The third play is A Crescendo of Dreams. It was directed by Perry and written by Tyler Blalock, Paul Fox, and Tiffany Connolly. The stars are Peel, Davie, Adams, and Asbury.

Fox was “a little worried” about seeing his play be performed on stage. “I think it [requires] a great deal of courage. It’s a great endeavour on both sides.”

A Crescendo of Dreams is about a group of patients in a hospital who share a lucid dream each night. In the dream, all of their injuries and disabilities are healed.

Perry said that he is “very excited to direct,” and his directing style is “listen[ing] to what my actors think is best.” Asked to preview the play, he said, “Akin to the style of Inception, A Crescendo of Dreams is a dramatic piece full of plot twists that keeps you thinking.”

The final play being performed is Solaramic. It was directed by Davie and written by Beth Bryan, Meleah Travis, and Maddie Norwood. Solaramic stars Perry, Asbury, and Amber Keller.

Travis said, “I’m excited [to see] how they portray the play. I just want to see the changes they made.”

The play is about two businesspeople, Lauren (Asbury) and Matt (Perry), who meet on a subway and become friends, then discover a dark secret that might tear their friendship apart. A businesswoman (Keller) appears in scenes to provide comedic relief.

Davie did not know what type of directing style he has because “this is my first time directing... I’m going to try to be as laid back as I can.” Asked to write a slogan for his play, he said, “My play is about enemies becoming friends.”

Jared Taylor, the OHS theatre teacher, said that Epic Episodes will be a “great experience... [It is] pretty exciting. Directors have challenges [and] actors have creative freedom. The playwrights see what works and what didn’t.”

Written by Matt McLaughlin

Friday, January 4, Orange High School’s Creative Writing class, taught by Brooke Smith, went to Pathways Elementary School to read children stories that the students had written, illustrated, and bound themselves.

The class was split into groups and sent into two different Kindergarten classes. Then, those groups split up further among themselves and rotated around the respective classrooms. The students would read the story to the kindergartners, show them the pictures, and tell the students how the writers bound the book together.

Two students who attended the field trip, Skylar Crabtree, junior, and Samantha Flanagan, Senior, were able to briefly talk about their experience on the trip.

Skylar Crabtree wrote a book about a ballerina called Fabulous Feet. She felt that the trip overall went well, but had some complaints about the books themselves. She felt that a page requirement should have been enforced. “One girl only wrote, like, seven pages, and she was done reading in, like, 30 seconds.” Other than that, she had no complaints.

Samantha Flanagan wrote a book called Basset Hound Adventures about a basset hound who protected a barn from cats. She had no complaints about the field trip. “I wouldn't change anything, but I’d like to do it again,” said Flanagan.

Both Flanagan and Crabtree said that their high point of the trip was being able to read to the kids.

Written by Ashley Hinkle 

Nine out of the thirteen selected students flocked to the podium to tell their twisted tales of terror. The session began with the distribution of treats that the creative writing students and Smith provided. The first story, titled “A Place to Die,” was written and told by Freshman Samantha Nance (see video). The story was about suicide and contained a lot of gore. It was filled with vivid details and wonderful imagination. Junior Savannah Kimbrough shared her story "The Taxidermist" (see video), a new take on "stranger danger."

“The Curve,” written and told by Freshman Andie McKinnon, told of a horrible creature with fangs and goat's feet. The creature resembled a fawn, a dark creature associated with the devil. When asked what his favorite story was, Caleb Hall, a senior in Terry's class, said that, “I really enjoyed Samantha Nance's story 'A Place to Die.' It was nice and well put together.” Erin Freeman, the writer of “Goodbye Little Sister,” said, “It was fun to write and tell these stories.”

Smith plans to make the Scary Story Showcase an annual event.