FHS speech team to perform at state contest Feb. 8

FAIRFIELD - Fairfield High School's speech team will send seven acts to the state competition Feb. 8 at Cedar Rapids-Washington High School.

That's the number of the school's acts to receive a Division I rating at district competition Jan. 25 in Ottumwa.

Residents who wish to see the team's performances will have a chance to do so on Tuesday, Feb. 4 when the speech team will hold a Night of Theatre at 7 p.m. in the FHS Auditorium. The show will include performances in one-act play, readers theatre, ensemble acting, short film, TV and radio news, musical theatre, group improvisation, and group mime.

The team held its first Night of Theatre on Tuesday, Jan. 28.

2020 is the final year to see performances by some of the school's most accomplished thespians, seniors such as Harper Fiske and Mira Pappin. The two act in an ensemble together where they each play multiple characters. The ensemble is called 'The Children's Hour,” and is based on a 1934 play by the same name, and a 1961 made into a film starring Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine.

Betsy Wotherspoon, one of the team's coaches, said the act is a difficult piece that deals with adult themes, and that she had been saving it for years for the right pair of girls to come along, and they have in the form of Fiske and Pappin.

'I couldn't give it to just anybody because it's a challenging piece, and they've done a really good job with it,” Wotherspoon said. 'They surprised me, and made me cry on Saturday.”

The play is a story about the power of lies. Pappin and Fiske play two women who own a school for girls. To get revenge on the women for denying her a trip, one of the little girls tells a lie about their relationship, alleging they are lesbians. The little girl's allegation spreads through town. All the parents pull their children from the school and all the teachers quit. The two women are forced to live in the school because it's not safe for them to leave.

Pappin remarked, 'It was an influential piece of writing when it came out, and there wasn't the representation like that before.”

In the two weeks leading up to the district competition, Fiske and Pappin could never find time to practice the act for Wotherspoon due to school cancellations and early-outs. Though the speech team couldn't hold formal practices on those days, Fiske went to Pappin's house to rehearse their ensemble. Wotherspoon had to trust that the girls were ready for contest.

Fiske said Wotherspoon asked the two of them if they'd like to perform it for her just before leaving for Ottumwa, and they both replied, 'Nah, we're fine.”

'That probably worried her,” Fiske laughed.

Wotherspoon said she was proud of Fiske and Pappin for sinking their teeth into such a mature play, and one that is rarely seen at speech competitions.

'Harper and I have been looking for a piece to do together since our freshman year that involved themes like this,” Pappin said.

'Even when we did plays together, we never did characters that interact that much,” Fiske said. 'We just had this feeling that we'd have great chemistry, but never got to flesh it out until this year.”

In addition to their ensemble together, Pappin and Fiske each perform in one other piece. For Pappin, it's radio news, and for Fiske, it's musical theatre. Radio news is different from most of the other performances in speech because it's produced ahead of time and shown to the judges, as opposed to being performed live. Students must record six minutes on a single topic, including actual news stories from local, national and international outlets, plus a commercial and a weather forecast. Pappin's group chose to focus on cults. Their commercial was on Kool-Aid, and their fake radio station name was even 'KULT.” The other members of radio news are Erica Olson, Anna Westphal and Aven Gottshall.

Fiske's musical theatre group sings songs from the musical 'Mean Girls,” which debuted in 2017 and is based on the film by the same name that came out in 2004. The speech students sing three songs from the musical, which are interspersed with dialogue to create a full story arc. Fiske said she had the chance to see the musical over winter break, and unbeknown to her, two of her cast mates saw it on Broadway in New York. The other members of the musical theatre group are Jay Coplea, Logan Nelson, Allison Reid and Sophia Fritz.

Fiske and Pappin have performed in every play since their freshman year. Though acting in the play and acting on the speech team require a similar skill set, the girls said they are very different experiences. Pappin said speech is more intimate, because the performers are acting just a few feet away from a judge, compared to a play where the actors perform on a stage separated from their audience.

'And because speech is more intimate, you have to focus so much on what you do,” Pappin said. 'The judge can see everything. If you're in a play and you make a mistake, you might be able to hide it, because there's so much to look at, but that's not true in speech.”

'Your face and your body language have to be ‘on' the whole time,” Fiske said. 'And in speech, we can't rely on props or costumes. We're just allowed seven chairs.”

Fiske and Pappin started their theatrical careers under Tena Edlin at Fairfield Middle School. Pappin didn't feel comfortable acting right away, so for the first three years of middle school she worked on the crew, doing the behind-the-scenes work. By eighth grade, Pappin had worked up enough gumption to perform on stage.

Fiske went followed much the same path, starting out as a crew member until she was in seventh grade, when Edlin told her she would have more fun acting in 'Fiddler and the Roof” than working the sound or lights.

'But it's a musical and I hate singing,” Fiske protested at the time. 'I don't want to sing for you.”

Nevertheless, Edlin persisted and got Fiske to try out. She sang the alphabet at her audition, and earned a spot on the cast.

Now, more than four years later, Fiske and Pappin have come full circle and are encouraging younger kids to go out for drama. They attend every middle school drama production to put in a good word about the high school's program.

'We went to the middle school's ‘The Lion King Jr.' and cried super hard,” Pappin admitted.

Harper Fiske's younger sister Gerda is a sophomore who is also on the speech team. Gerda is in a group mime and an ensemble act. She said her sister encouraged her to try speech team last year, and she's glad she did because she had a blast. This is the second year that Gerda has done group mime, a category she likes because she enjoys being expressive and moving around a bit more. She said she plans to do group mime the rest of her high school career, while also experimenting with other acts, too.

Freshman Jacob Carlson also has an older sibling, senior Dallas Carlson, who has paved the way for his acting career.

'I knew I wanted to do the plays [in high school] since I've been doing those since sixth grade, but I wasn't sure about speech team,” Jacob said. 'It's been really fun. Mime is a lot different from a regular play, and it was fun to expand into new territory.”

Carlson is in a one-act play called '26 Pebbles” about how the community of Newtown, Connecticut, coped with the tragic deaths of 26 children and adults from a mass school shooting in 2012. Carlson is also in the group mime 'Mime of the Ancient Mariner,” based on the 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” a poem from 1798 about a sailor who recounts a harrowing voyage he took years ago. The students must tell the story through actions alone, without words or even props, except the chairs.

Sophomore Emma Winkelman is a member of the one-act play and the group mime, too. She said that to simulate the boat, members of the group link arms in the shape of the boat.

Winkelman said she had never done mime before, but her friends encouraged her to do it since she had done dance for many years. That seemed odd to her, since mime seemed nothing like dance.

'And then I've ended up dancing a lot,” Winkelman laughed. 'My techniques have really improved, and my dance teacher has helped me with it.”

Winkelman said it takes practice to make the audience believe certain objects are present when they really aren't.

'You just have to be mindful of your surroundings, even your ‘fake' surroundings,” she said.

List of FHS speech acts going to state:

Short Films 'Remember Me” and 'The Dinner Club”

Ensemble Actings 'The Dodo Pact” and 'The Children's Hour”

Musical Theatres 'Mean Girls” and 'Legally Blonde”

Radio Broadcast KULT

Readers Theatre 'The White Pages”

One-Act Play '26 Pebbles”

Group Mime 'Mime of the Ancient Mariner”