~ The Advocate Asks ~

Saugus High Theatre Teacher Nick Raponi talks about hosting Saturday’s state High School Drama Festival test

  Editor’s Note: For this week’s column, we sat down with Nicholas “Nick” Raponi, Saugus High School’s Theatre Teacher and Drama Club Director, and talked about the Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild’s High School Drama Festival, which Saugus High will be hosting for the first time tomorrow (Saturday, March 1) in the Lemoine-Mitchell Auditorium. Raponi, 42, was born in Peabody and grew up in that city, graduating from Peabody High School in 2001. After graduation, he pursued a career in the restaurant business, but decided to change careers and return to school to become a theatre teacher. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Performance with a minor in Secondary Education from Salem State University in 2015. In 2020, he received a Master’s in Theatre from Regent University. He’s been teaching for about 10 years. He worked for several years at Winthrop High School and worked closely with the High School Drama Society and was part of the team that won the state championship for two years in a row. He also worked in Haverhill and Revere before landing his “dream job” at Saugus High School. Raponi and his wife Amanda have been married for seven years and they bought their Saugus home in 2017. They have two young boys: Nicky, 4, and Remy, 1. Highlights of this week’s interview follow.

Q: Feel free to share your background in theatre, whether this was something that you did as a kid, going through high school and college.

A: I have always been interested in the theatre. At 11, I auditioned for my first show at the Higgins Middle School in Peabody and got cast, which genuinely changed my life. I gained my love for singing, performing and entertaining in middle school under the direction of my very first theatre mentor, the late Ellen (Carlin) Endslow. At Peabody High School, I was a member of the Stage One Drama Club, the Chorus, the Chorale and the Show Choir and a three-season athlete. After high school, I found community theatre, and my life improved. Not only did I develop a more profound love for theatre arts, but I also met some of the most talented people in this industry, who taught me many of the skills I use daily as a theatre teacher. I met my best friends and my wife doing community theatre. I have worked with The Winthrop Playmakers (Board of Directors, president & artistic director) and the Theatre Company of Saugus as a performer, scenic designer and lighting designer and many other surrounding theatres: Marblehead Little Theatre, Wakefield Repertory Theatre, Burlington Players and many more. In addition to performing in Massachusetts, I have been an adjudicator for the EMACT (Eastern Massachusetts Association of Community Theatre) Dash Program, having also received Awards and nominations through EMACT.

• Best Actor in a Musical: “Seussical The Musical” – Neverland Theatre
• Best Set Design of a play: “The Shadow Box” – Winthrop Playmakers
• Best Director of a Play (Winner): “The Shadow Box” – Winthrop Playmakers
• Best Supporting Actor in a Musical & Best Set Design of a Musical: “25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” – Theatre Company of Saugus
• Best Set Design of a Musical: “Nevermore” – Theatre Company of Saugus
• Best Lead Performer in a Musical: “Something Rotten” – Marblehead Little Theatre
• Irene Ryan Scholarship Nominee: “The Shadow Box” – Salem State University
• American College Theatre Festival Scenic Design Finalist: “Machinal” Salem State University

I am an avid theatre performer with more than 70 performance credits. I am also a freelance theatre artist as a stage director, scenic designer, technical director and lighting designer, having worked for many theatre companies, high schools and colleges/universities in and around Massachusetts, having racked up more than 100 production credits in all facets of theatrical production. I am also an adjunct professor of Technical Theatre at Endicott College and main stage scenic designer for all department shows!

Q: Please tell me a little about the Massachusetts Educational Theatre Guild’s High School Drama Festival and why it’s a big deal to the Saugus High School drama students.

A: The METG HS DramaFEST is a statewide, multi-round competition. Ten schools, in addition to Saugus, are hosting round one at their respective schools. If you ask any student who has participated in DramaFEST, they will most likely tell you that it is the best and most memorable part of their high school career. It is an opportunity to make theatre and perform for seven other schools’ drama clubs and their fans. It allows you to create a show for other theatre lovers! It is also a fantastic opportunity to meet students from different districts who share your passion and watch eight shows daily! It is an unforgettable experience! Show can be no longer than 40 minutes long. Schools have only five minutes to set up the stage with their scenery and five minutes to remove it all.

Four schools from each preliminary round will move on to Semifinals [on] Saturday, March 15. From Semifinals, two winners from each site will move on to Finals to take place over the course of three days at the John Hancock Building in Boston, where three schools will be named champions. This year 88 schools are participating in Festival statewide.

Q: Please tell me why this is a big deal for you as the Theatre Teacher and Drama Club Director at Saugus High. How many of these Drama Festivals have you participated in during your teaching career?

A: I have participated in almost 15 METG Festivals, working with Essex Technical High School, Winthrop High School (two-time State Champions during my tenure as Technical Director) and Saugus High School. As the Theatre Teacher here at Saugus High School and only in my second year here, it is a big deal to have been chosen as a host site! The Lemoine-Mitchell Auditorium, here at Saugus Middle High School, is beautiful and has everything METG needs in a host school. While hosting the event comes with its fair share of additional work, spreadsheets and much planning, we have a great group of very talented students to support other schools and their productions. Hosting here at Saugus also helps alleviate some costs for the SHSDC. Hosting here saves us money on school buses and U-Haul trucks for set transport for round one!

Q: How long has this festival been going on, and when was the last time that Saugus High competed in it? What’s the best the school has ever done?

A: METG DramaFEST has been around for almost 100 years, having originated in 1928. Since its inception, Saugus has won the State Championship once with their production of “The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales” in 1996. Saugus participates annually in this event and has moved on to the final round, only having won the big one once. We hope to change that in the coming years!

Q: When was the last time that Saugus High hosted the competition?

A: Saugus High School has never hosted this event. With the beautiful new school complex, Saugus is now equipped with the appropriate theatre and more than adequate technology to host this massive event! We hope to host this event annually, whether for the Preliminary or Semifinal round.

Q: Please tell me a little bit about your team. How many students are on the team that will compete on Saturday? How many in the cast and how many in various backup roles? Are most kids theatre students? How many of these kids have aspirations of theatre beyond high school or even college?

A: While the SHSDC has a membership of over 60 students, our company for this particular show, “Woyzeck (Re-Imagined),” consists of 37 students: 13 cast members and the other 24 students are members of the production staff and run/tech crew. For this production, we have students in the following roles: stage manager, assistant stage managers, student lighting & scenic designer, student costume designers, student hair & makeup designers, student props designers, scenic painters, live musicians and music composers, sound designers.

I have had the wonderful opportunity to teach most of the Drama Club students during their school day, but not all students involved have been able to fit one of my theatre classes into their daily schedule. While I am sure several students from Drama Club will continue to make theatre after high school, there are only a small selection of students who are interested in majoring in theatre or trying to become a working theatre professional.

I would be remiss to not mention the adult staff I have helping the SHSDC make some theatre magic. Kyle Gregory, a good friend, theatre professional and professor of theatre, was the assistant director for the show, the fight choreographer and put his Master’s in Playwriting to the test and adapted the play to the new concept and cut it down to 39 minutes!

John Sullivan is a volunteer set builder who has been helping the SHSDC build scenery for more than a decade and still continues to do so even though his daughter has long graduated. John’s help and loyalty to the SHSDC over previous years, and since I have come here, is greatly appreciated.

Jimmy Wlodyka, a Saugus native, has helped us with all audio and sound items, and his advice since I have arrived here in Saugus has been more helpful than he would ever know.

Q: About how many students are involved in theatre and fine arts at Saugus High School?

A: I can only speak to the numbers that are within the world of Theatre. Drama Club has 60 active members. Saugus High School also has a Concert band, Jazz band, Chorus, Acapela Group (Tonal Chaos) and an Improv Troupe (Needs Improv’ment).

Q: Briefly, please tell me about “Woyzeck (Re-Imagined),” how it was selected and why it was selected as the Saugus High entry.

A: I first studied the play “Woyzeck” by Georg Büchner in my first class at Salem State University, Theatre History II, with a fantastic professor. I remember being in awe of the play and its fractal nature. Upon revisiting the play in grad school, I knew that I wanted to produce the play. The nature of the play really lends itself well to be chosen as a festival entry because it is edgy, daring, different, and it is noted as the one of the first plays of German expressionism. As the play is in the public domain, Assistant Director and good friend Kyle Gregory adapted the original text to fit within the confines of the METG guidelines. When conceptualizing our version, I met with Kyle and we chatted through every scene of the original text and re-imagined the world of the play to take place in a circus/freak show during World War I.

“Woyzeck” is widely studied by theatre scholars globally, and this piece spoke to me upon revisiting the fragmented text. DramaFEST is an outlet to perform edgy, daring pieces that otherwise may not be a great fit due to their nature or lack of name recognition. This play is by far the most popular of Büchner’s German Expressionist plays, but a lot of that is due to its fragmented nature and the fact that Büchner died before it was finished and the text was published posthumously.

When conceptualizing this piece, Kyle Gregory and I read through the text scene by scene and realized how this story still rings true today. Perhaps not to the extent to which this production has been adapted, but certainly, PTSD in soldiers and manipulation of the poor is very real in 2025. As we began to conceptualize our production, one scene stood out. In the original text, Scene 3 occurred in a circus with beasts and freaks. Then the idea came to have all of the happenings in the text, all manipulation of our leading player Woyzeck, all on display in freak show fashion, and the entire plot was dictated by a sinister carnival barker. Re-imagining the text allowed us to create a unified vision and a through-line for a play that may appear quite fragmented and disoriented otherwise.

The hardest part of being a theatre teacher is choosing the titles of shows that we will produce. So many items need to be considered, cast size and technical needs being the most important to consider.

Ultimately I chose this show because I knew I would be very invested in creating this piece. It allows us the opportunity to create some wonderful characters for the talented performers we have, and certainly lends itself well to many possibilities of design for scenery, lighting, props, sound, etc….

Q: How many Saugus High students auditioned for this play and how long ago did it start?

A: Auditions for the play took place back in December shortly after we closed our November musical, but we did not begin rehearsing until we returned back in 2025 from Holiday break. We have been rehearsing for about seven weeks. The week before the event is known as Tech week. We will be welcoming all visiting schools throughout the week to prepare their scenic items and lighting in our theatre to be ready for Saturday’s festival.

Q: Please tell me briefly what it entails for each of these students to participate in a production like this. About how many hours goes into preparing for a festival like this, from rehearsal to building the set and getting the costumes?

A: All students who participate in DramaFEST are required to be at rehearsals/meetings three to four times per week. Rehearsals are typically nine to 10 per week. The farther into a production we get the more hours we spend making sure it all happens! We are typically rehearsing simultaneously while sets are being built and painted. In order to be involved, students must commit to all rehearsals, calls and rounds of the competition.

Q: How long has the team been rehearsing this play? How many rehearsals? Are you optimistic that the Saugus High students will be prepared on Saturday afternoon?

A: I am always feeling optimistic and I am always proud of the work we are doing. I have learned alot from theatre over the last 30 years. A few things I have learned are that theatre is subjective and there is no such thing as a perfect live theatrical production. I know the students will be prepared and will give it 110% in whatever they are doing for the show. All I can ask of all members of the SHSDC is to give their absolute best. If we leave the stage with no regrets, and we have done everything we are capable of, then I feel confident with the show we have worked so incredibly hard to create.

I have been to the festival 15 times. I have won some, I have lost some. But what is important to me for myself and my students is the ability to reflect on the work we have done. What did we learn? How are you a better performer now than when you began? The intention of the Massachusetts Educational Theatre Guild is to create an environment where these young theatre artists have learned and appreciated the art form. The awards and winners are such a small part of the festival day and the success of your Fest show should not be measured only by wins and losses. It should be measured with pride and how much we have learned, throughout the process.

Q: My understanding is that four of the eight schools will advance to the semifinals on March 15. How many schools will make it to the finals and when?

A: 14 schools make it to the final at the John Hancock Building in Boston. Finals take place over three days: Thursday, March 27th through Saturday, March 29th.

Q: How will the competition be judged?

A: Each site has three adjudicators. That follows strict guidelines when choosing a winner. Here are some of the judging guidelines sent out by METG: The METG encourages theatrical exploration, experimentation and creativity, embracing a wide diversity of periods, styles and genres. Judges are instructed not to evaluate the material itself but to assess the overall execution and cohesion of the piece. The METG encourages festival participants to present works that reflect a philosophy of inclusion and a marriage of all facets of theater.

Q: Aside from the satisfaction of having done well in the competition if Saugus High students do well, what are some of the rewards for these students, the benefit from having participated in an event like this?

A: The rewards are endless – meeting new friends, networking, learning from others, exposure to plays you may never have known existed.

Q: Does hosting an event like this help showcase the Lemoine-Mitchell Auditorium at Saugus Middle High School? How so? And how does it help the Saugus Middle High School?

A: The Lemoine-Mitchell Auditorium is a beautiful space from both an architectural and technical standpoint. Students of the SHSDC and my classes at Saugus High designed and rigged a brand-new lighting plot that is conducive to hosting this event and lighting all shows in an easy way, but yet allows for some wonderful artistic choices to be made. When you have a school as beautiful as the Saugus Middle High School Complex, and a theatre like the Lemoine-Mitchell, it would be a travesty to not share it with other schools and the Saugus community!

Q: Anything else that you would like to share about Saturday’s Drama Festival and the Saugus High students who will be competing?

A: Hosting this event is a highlight of my career as a theatre teacher. The importance of the event and the passion in theatre students across the state to be their best is genuinely uplifting! The event means the world to all that participate, and the community supporting them would make it all the more worthwhile! Tickets for Saugus High School can be purchased in advance, or paid with cash at the door; $10 gains you entry to all eight shows and the awards ceremony! The SHSDC will be hosting a concession stand throughout the entire day!