Freshmen paint their skit backdrops. Photo Illustration | Gauri Manoj
The Class of 2025: Diving in
Freshmen reflect on the process of creating their first performance
The paint was all ready to go. A mix of green, red, blue and yellow paint cans surrounded the giant white banner as a group of freshmen stood around it with pensive expressions. Freshman class officer Miya Kosakura wondered how they would outline the design they had in mind, who would begin to paint the first strokes to bring their prop to life with color and texture. It had to look good — it had to mirror perfection. Kosakura knew first impressions are always the most important and for the Class of 2025, the upcoming Homecoming week would be their chance to show the MVHS community their abilities.
The freshman class officers faced an array of challenges creating their first Homecoming skit, dances and decorations. The Class of 2025’s theme is the board game The Game of Life. With the help of students with theater experience, the freshmen completed their skit script on Aug. 24. According to freshman class officer Peter Chen, an initial obstacle was the lack of experience in preparing for events like Homecoming.
“You just get thrown into the water, and then you kind of have to figure out how to swim,” Chen said. “For me, that’s the Homecoming planning — you get shocked at first because it’s so much work and then you adapt to it. [You] start to get used to the environment and work with other officers and students to plan something major that turns out successful.”
Freshman Trisha Sannappanavar, a prop decorator and costume designer, was challenged by her part of the Homecoming planning process. However, she says those difficulties were outweighed by the experience of working with other people.
“When we started painting the giant backgrounds with the Game of Life theme, it really gave me a sense of [teamwork] with my friends and other freshmen,” Sannappanavar said. “It’s not easy pulling together to do that because the paint was drying so slowly and we had to keep everyone focused, but I wouldn’t call that a challenge because we actually had fun with [the process].”
As someone who has attended but never planned school events, Chen sees the workload as demanding. After the long period of quarantine, he finds that the lack of interaction in the past year has been detrimental to their Homecoming preparation.
“I think what we’re struggling the most with right now is finding lots of people who are interested in participating,” Chen said. “Most people are really used to online, and as freshmen, we’re often the ones who aren’t used to having school spirit compared to the other classes, so I hope we can bring that spirit back through getting more freshmen involved.”
For Sannappanavar, despite the challenges of in-person interactions, she still finds the experience to be refreshing. She finds that spending time on skit decs with her peers is a great chance for her to finally socialize after a year of remote learning.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Sannappanavar said. “Because last year, I didn’t even know anyone in my classes, and now I actually get to know [the students] around me. For me, I was really looking forward to everyone coming together. I mean I’ve known some of these freshmen since middle school but it wasn’t until we got to meet in person after so much social distancing [that] we actually started bonding.”
According to Kosakura, the planning is going smoothly, despite concerns about participation. With skit decorations and rehearsals planned throughout September, Kosakura is confident in her class’ ability to pull off a Homecoming performance.
“There’s lots of planning involved, so being organized [is a challenge],” Kosakura said. “But I think as a class, we’re really good. This is our first Homecoming, so I think we’re doing pretty OK. And of course, we hope to beat 2024 to prove that we know what we’re doing and kind of boost our class spirit [for] the next time.”
You can learn more about the freshman class of 2025 on their Instagram, @montavista.2025.
