Introduction
Mrs. Raven had been the Theater teacher and director at Lilydale High School for decades. She was years away from retirement and students looked up to her as a mentor. Most of the time Mrs. Raven liked teaching at Lilydale. It was one of the best schools in the state as far as their Arts departments were concerned. There was just one thing that stopped Lilydale from being her ideal school. Okay, tow things. The pressure the students were under to excel at one of the arts and the pressure to choose if they were multi-talented.
The three rivaling groups at Lilydale High School weren’t popular kids, Goths, and honors students at all. The groups were the music department, the art students, and the actors, and crew in the school plays. Things got even more heated if any student was talented enough to belong to two of the programs or all of them. Play auditions would be the same day as musical practices. Students might be late for play or musical practice because they also worked on the school’s literary arts magazine. Fights would start over a chorus girl daring to audition for a play.
Thankfully most of the animosity came from the students. Mrs. Raven could remember a time when things were much worse. All the staff could. A decade ago something had caused the school to rethink certain policies that had added pressure from the staff.
Even though the staff wasn’t getting as involved as they used to be the student body was still under extreme pressure. Especially the Junior and Senior students. If any student didn’t specialize by Senior year they were deemed a waste of time, or not as talented by their peers. No one, not even the principle could bring peace to the rivaling programs. Then one day in October all of that changed.
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