Old Memories Re-discovered

I was fixing my library the other day and I decided to transfer all of my old notes, documents, even love letters from my wife and important papers from my bedroom to the new library. So I started going through them, sorting them out from memorabilias, personal letters, reviewers composed of old notes, even old certificates and news clippings of previous achievements and involvements. I also happened to rediscover old pictures of my high school days.

How I missed high school.

What I missed about it the most are the high school plays we had. Every year, my classmates and I would produce and perform a play. I would be the writer and director and most of my classmates would be actors and performers and crew. Usually, Renalyn and/or Andrea would play the leading actress or supporting actress. Then the leading actors would either be Rommel, Kayo, or JR. The rest would be part of the whole ensemble.

The first class play we performed was the story which I wrote entitled: Under the Spell. If I could remember it right, it was a story of a female vampire who fled her coven and fell in love with a human. Torn between her loyalty to the coven and her love for the human, the female vampire (played by Andrea) chose to stay with the humans. Her love interest (played by JR) fought for their love for one another, and even had to face the leader of the vampires (played by Herbert). In the end, Andrea had to die while protecting JR from the face off. But miraculously, the female vampire was resurrected and eventually transformed back to a human being. It was a fantasy/love story which won for us Best Play, Best Story, Best Supporting Actress, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, even Best Set Design and Musical Scoring. It was a sweep.

During our second year we were chosen to represent the school in the first ever Inter-school Playfest. We performed the classical comedy play, "New Yorker in Tondo" written by Marcelino Agana. And this time, Renalyn played the lead role of Kikay. Kayo, Andrea and Rommel played Kikay's childhood friends and Christina a.k.a Cute played her mom. It was a totally hilarious play and under the guidance of Mrs. Rosanna Gaspay, we were able to bag the citation of Best Production Ensemble.

During our third year, we performed an almost similar kind of play, another Filipino classic by Lilia A. Villa, "Educating Josefina". This time, Joy played Josefina and La-arni and Bryant played Josefina's parents. It was again another hit.

During our final year in high school we thought we could never anymore produce a play because the inter-school playfest was placed on hold but our Speech teacher, Ms. Beedah Pfleider decided that for our class project we produce another stage play. This time we performed my original script, "The Tragedy of Joshua". Kayo this time played the lead role of Joshua, with Renalyn playing his ex-girlfriend, Rommel as Renalyn's new boyfriend and Joshua's best friend, La-arni as Joshua' mother, JR as the negotiating neighbor, Andrea as the hostage and Joey as the chief of police. It was a one-act hostage scene when the desperate Joshua decided to take someone hostage after learning that his girlfriend left him for his best friend.

I missed my high school days. For us, the stage was a new world, where we could play and have fun, forget about school for awhile and pretend. I surely missed my high school days.