Page 4
the index · news
May 2022
Senior assassin unleashes Sixth Form competition Ryan Rodack ’22
S
enior assassin: a staple among graduating classes at many high schools across the United States. A group of 54 Sixth Formers signed up to partake in the game’s Haverford School 2022 edition, which commenced the last week of April. Students are assigned a target that they must “kill” by squirting them with a toy water gun. To eliminate their target, a student must shoot him while he is not touching his safety item. Safety items change from round to round. Ranging from framed portraits of Upper School Dean of Students Mr. Luqman Kolade, a 15-pound dumbbell, and two twelve-packs of Coca-Cola, students can be seen attached to their safety items throughout Wilson Hall. Sixth Former Colin Stewart and Fifth Former Colin Kelly took on the challenge of organizing the game. “I thought it would be fun to be the center of controversy if something happened,” Stewart said. “But, I also enjoyed making the rules, making the game difficult, and making the safety item a fun thing while making it challenging for everyone.” “Originally, I signed up to be the person that decided everybody’s targets,” Kelly said. “Colin Stewart organized the event, but he was also in the game, so he could not be the one deciding everyone’s targets.” Kelly formatted the game to make it more personable and exciting for everyone involved. “I assigned targets so that people would get other people who were their friends, so this often resulted in best friends getting each other,” Kelly said. The first round was filled with many
“I didn’t think the rules for the first round were laid out that well. I heard the targets were not randomized, which I didn’t like,” Sixth Former Sam Tryon said. Tryon is not the only Sixth Former who was unhappy with the game setup. “A lot of seniors come up to me, unhappy with the rules or how things turned out, or just people complaining about the game and being frustrated, but I don’t get offended,” Kelly said. Tryon eventually got out of the game because of the 5-7 day time frame to eliminate one’s target. “I was pressed for time and lost motivation pretty quickly. Nobody got me out, and I didn’t get anybody else out; I just got eliminated because I didn’t get my target out before the deadline,” Tryon said.
All of the remaining students are fully committed to the game. Austin Zhuang ’22 carrying 12-packs of Coca-Cola as his safety item exciting eliminations filled with strategic planning. “I told my target, who just so happened to be one of my close friends, that he left some clothes at my house,” Sixth Former Nick Pante said. “I drove over to his house to drop off the clothes, and when he came outside without his item, I immediately ran out of the car and shot him.” Stewart had a similar encounter.
JINGYUAN CHEN ’23
“I was out with my friends a few weeks ago, and my target, Aidan Boyle, happened to be there. I had my safety item with me, but my water gun was in the car, so I had to run out to get my water gun and then I got Aidan Boyle out,” Stewart said. While many students enjoyed that the targets were fixed so that people were paired with their friends, others were not fond of this tweak.
At this point in the game, only a few students remain. All of the remaining students are fully committed to the game. “I’ve spent too much time on this game, so my attitude is winning or just not playing,” Sixth Former Former John Zhang said. “People have helped me kill other people in the game, so I feel like I’m obligated to continue to hold these dumb items and win the entire game.”
Theater III* students write original comedy-murdermystery play Owen Yu ’23
S
econd String, last year’s Theater III* production, pioneered the beginning of student-written plays for the Theater III* class. Following its success, the current Theater III* students look to write their own unique and ambitious show: a comedy murder mystery. The show, with the tentative title of On Board, revolves around a CEO’s yacht party and the eventual disappearance of one of the party attendees. Along with the intriguing plot, the cast of characters holds some of the show’s most entertaining aspects. “There are some detectives that come in that have their own ‘personal issues,’ and we also have a son who has an IQ of negative five,” Fifth Former Jaiden Shuchman said. “We’ve got a great group of characters that I think people would enjoy.” In addition to developing the characters, the class has also been working on finetuning scenes on stage.
“We’ve been putting them on stage and seeing what happens. It’s pleasing to see.” JAIDEN SHUCHMAN ’23 “We’ve also been blocking some scenes. We’ve been putting them on stage and seeing what happens,” Shuchman said. “It’s pleasing to see, and it also gives us good workshopping advice. It’s like reading your own paper out loud—you see the issues with it, you see the fallacies with it—and I think that doing this has been a good experience
for workshopping our own writing and also working on collaborative writing. Through this process, the class can identify what needs to be added, replaced, and removed from the script. When brainstorming scenes, the class has adopted a unique system that stays true to the lightheartedness of the script. “Usually we have groups go off and write their own scenes,” said Fifth Former Colin Kelly. “I think it’s great because we get all these ideas, and once we come together and revise the ideas, we usually just end up laughing most of the time because of how great and funny the scenes are.” As the Theater III* students continue writing the show, they acknowledge that they have encountered certain difficulties throughout the writing process. “Unfortunately, the schedule with the quarter system has really limited our time working on this project, so we haven’t been able to get as much done as we would’ve liked to,” said Kelly. With a large class and an ambitious idea, a lot of time is needed to develop the intricacies and details within the play. But with a limited time frame due to seniors’ early departure, the class is finding difficulty fully fleshing out the plot. “Because the seniors leave on May 20th, our time is pretty limited,” Kelly said. “And because we have such a big class of sixteen people, we have to have a really big cast in the show, which means that there are a lot of parts to write, a lot of characters to consider, and a lot of plot points to get done.” Furthermore, a significant portion of the class has limited experience with writing a show, which leads to certain aspects of the
Ian Rush ’22 and Thomas Pendergast ’23 practicing for the play production being overlooked. “I feel like the hardest part is that most of us haven’t written a show before, and I feel like we spent too much time setting up the plot, setting up the characters, and revising everything multiple times,” Shuchman said. “Especially in a limited time frame such as this—we weren’t aware of the issues [revising the script multiple times] would cause until pretty recently.” Although the production doesn’t have a finalized performance date yet, the class is working diligently to ensure the show is at the highest quality it can be. In the end, the goal is to produce a show that both the class and audience can enjoy.
JOEY KAUFFMAN ’23
“We are trying to make something that’s entertaining, coherent, and fun for everyone to watch.” COLIN KELLY ’23 “Whether or not we perform an awardwinning show has nothing to do with how much fun we have doing it,” Kelly said. “We’re trying to make something that’s entertaining, coherent, and fun for everyone to watch.”
