Newcomb students tackle heavy subject matter in original stage production this weekend
FARMINGTON — Shortly after classes resumed at Newcomb High School this winter following the holiday break, John Templin, an art and drama teacher at the school, and his students took the unusual step of organizing an evening meeting with parents to talk about their big spring semester project.
Given the serious nature of that project, Templin knew it was going to be important to make everyone feel comfortable. So he and his students put out a big spread — a spaghetti dinner, complete with salad and garlic toast, he noted — to set the mood.
Once everyone had eaten their fill and settled in that night, Templin began to speak. With his help and guidance, he said, his students had written an original play, “Nizhoni’s Last Summer,” that they hoped to produce before the end of the semester. It would be a significant departure from anything the school’s drama students had done before, he said, acknowledging that their previous productions had featured material targeted for children.
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“Nizhoni’s Last Summer” would be something else entirely, he said, warning parents that the play would cover such issues as suicide, transgenderism, bullying, substance abuse and coming out — all subjects his students believed were relevant to their experience as contemporary teenagers. The dialogue in the play would be frank, he said, and sometimes even profane.
“I had to stand up there and tell these parents, ‘Your kid is going to be onstage using cuss words, and this is the subject matter,’ Templin said, recalling his nervousness about how his message would be received. “And I said, ‘If you have issues, let’s talk about it now.’”
Templin had decided that if parents had objections to the play, it was better to face them at that point than see his students continue to work on the project and then have it derailed at the 11th hour.
The response he got was not what he expected.
“I remember they seemed to be glad were doing something, and they were glad their kids wanted to be a part of that,” Templin said. “And I think people like it when they feel like they’ve been seen. We’ve got a pretty powerful experience planned for the students and the audience.”
By the time that meeting took place in January, Templin and his students already had been at work on “Nizhoni’s Last Summer” for several weeks. Their preparations started before the holiday break, when Templin presented them with some material former students at the school had written before the COVID-19 pandemic began and the school went to remote learning.
“That gave us a jumping-off place,” he said.
Templin introduced his students to a theatrical concept called “devised theater” in which they would read a newspaper article on a contemporary issue, then improvise a scene based on what they had read. Templin took careful notes, retaining the best ideas and dialogue, then crafted it into a cohesive form, complete with several characters built around a central theme.
“I would go put it into written form, then they would edit it and change it,” he said. “The important thing was that this would feature real reservation teenage characters. There’s some language in there that’s definitely in the vernacular of reservation teenagers. There’s some language in there some people may consider inappropriate, but it rings true when they say it.”
Templin declined to reveal too much about the plot, but he did say the production revolves around a girl, Nizhoni, and a boy, Joe, who were friends as small children before drifting apart when they became older. The play catches up with them as teenagers when they have a chance encounter at a sheep camp.
“The play explores the situations they’ve endured in their lives, and the choices they’ve made and how one thing links to another,” he said.
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The production unfolds in an experimental fashion, Templin said, explaining that it moves back and forth in time, while some characters freeze as others continue speaking. There are even several instances in which characters break the fourth wall, directly addressing the audience. And some of the dialogue is spoken in Navajo.
A total of eight students are featured in the play, including Destiny Lee, Miracle McCurty, Binaahozhoonii Howard, Kiyanii Natonabah, Scarlet Bustamante and Jayden Abeita, while various other roles are filled by teachers, employees of the Central Consolidated School District, parents or even veteran actors from Theater Ensemble Arts in Farmington.
“We’ve created a different form of community theater,” Templin said.
Templin said his students wanted to go to the trouble of writing their own play because there simply wasn’t much, if any, material out there that related to their experiences of growing up on a remote part of the Navajo Nation. They especially felt the need to perform something relevant to their own lives after attending the New Mexico Activities Association One-Act Production Competition and High Desert Thespian Festival at San Juan College in Farmington earlier this school year, he said.
“When my kids saw other kids performing solid, theatrical, mature theater, they said, ‘We want to do that,’” he said. “I said, ‘OK, then let’s do some serious theater.’ The real reason we had to write the play was that there wasn’t anything that fit them. We had to have it made to fit our kids. … Where do you go to find a script written for three Navajo boys and five Navajo girls? You do what we did, if you can — you write your own.”
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Templin said the challenges of getting the production off the ground have been considerable, beginning with lining up a suitable venue. The closest theater to Newcomb is on the campus of Shiprock High School 36 miles to the north, meaning he and his students have to ride a bus for approximately 45 minutes each way to and from Shiprock each night for rehearsals.
But as opening night draws near, Templin and his students are feeling energized by their eagerness to show the community what they have created.
“This is the hardest work I’ve done in my time here, and I know it’s the hardest work they’ve done because we’re all so tired,” he said. “We feel like we’ve been hit by a train. But we also feel like we’ve created something we are all extremely proud of.”
“Nizhoni’s Last Summer” will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 13 at the Phil Thomas Performing Arts Center at Shiprock High School in Shiprock. Admission is free.
Mike Easterling can be reached at 505-564-4610 or measterling@daily-times.com.
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This article originally appeared on Farmington Daily Times: Newcomb High School students set to debut original stage production
