With the start of a new school year comes the first play production as well. This year Roosevelt’s budding thespians will be performing “Makin’ It,” a play about high school life in the 1980s. With a cast made up of 24 students, the Kent community is sure to see some new and familiar faces. This play will illustrate the typical high school geeks, jocks, burnouts, and popular students for the entire audience to relate to.

“It helps show the struggles of what kids go through in high school,” senior Andrew Alderson said.

“Makin’ It” is made up of an ensemble cast, which means there is no set main character that the play revolves around. There also isn’t one specific story line to follow. It is more of a combination of stories going on at the same time, much like a television show. The audience will be taken more in depth into specific characters’ lives sporadically throughout the play, like different scenes in a movie or TV show.

“There isn’t a main character. There’s multiple stories going on at once,” senior Tiffany Stoker said.

Stoker plays Brooke Benedict, an unnoticed senior desperate to be popular. She makes herself over, in a way, to go from unnoticed to noticed. Brooke will pay any price necessary to be seen as one of the popular girls, while her friend Pat feels that she might be paying the highest price possible.

“Her personality is trying to be someone she’s not,” Stoker said. “I like my character, I think every high school student goes through that.”

Andrew Alderson plays Vince Carnelli, the new high school principal. He is portrayed to be a very understanding and respected principal who grew up in intercity schools. Much like Roosevelt’s principal, Roger Sidoti, Vince Carnelli tries to be more of a friend to the students rather than a harsh administrator.

“He just wants to reach out and help the students,” Alderson said.

Not all of the characters in this play are in the high school, or even relate to it at all. Senior Alison Matas plays a 12-year-old little sister, Corly Barrows, who is too smart for her own good. She tends to spurt out random bits of information at the most inappropriate times. Corly, a slight hippy, antagonizes her brother and strives for attention throughout the play.

The audience will be very involved in this play with monologues. They will be able to relate to the characters in many different aspects very easily, even those audience members who aren’t yet in high school. There are funny parts to this play that will make people chuckle to think of, as well as sad parts, that will make the audience cry to remember how things were in high school. Memories will be jogged and relived in the minds of the audience members. Nostalgic feelings of happiness and sadness are bound to overcome the audience at one point in the play or another.

“It’s a very realistic play, there are funny parts where the audience will laugh out loud. But then there are parts that will make them remember things from high school that may have been sad or hard for them,” Stoker said.

The play is set to be performed on Nov. 16th, 17th, and 18th.