PUKALANI – Through years of participating in the school’s play productions and as avid members of the drama club, five seniors marked the last night of their high school theater career.

Seniors Rachel Bega, Hōkū Krueger, Kamalani Makua, Mason-Mahoe Pellazar, and  Kalani Ruidas took the stage for the final time during the last showing of the schools’ drama club production called Our Time held in Keōpūolani Hale on March 3, 2012.

“I’m definitely going to miss all of the backstage memories and getting to know all of the castmates,” said Bega, who has participated in the school’s plays since her freshman year.

Pellazar said he will miss being around the cast the most. “They’re just like family,” he said. It was his second year being a part of play production, and he wished he could have done more. “I feel almost regretful that I had not started doing plays [in] my freshman year,” he said.

The crowd that night was one of the “larger ones” in comparison to the three other times they performed, Pellazar said. Seeing the audience’s reaction and hearing them laugh, “makes me feel better on stage,” he said.

With more experience, the seniors were leaders and good examples for the underclassmen during the months of rehearsing.

“I think the younger kids look to the seniors to set an example of how the drama club is,” Ruidas said. “The way we lead is fun, and we led without being mean.”

The seniors had a greater responsibility than the other cast members in this play “because [as seniors] they’re role models,” director Ms. Alexis Dascoulias said.

Junior and cast member James Krueger, who has been in two play productions, said he will miss this year’s seniors. “I’m going to miss the life they bring to the show and how they’re always teaching us something,” he said.

Ms. Camille Romero, who has been Kamehameha School’s plays director in the past, sat in on the cast’s final performance. This year, Romero was able to watch the performance from the audience’s stand-point which was “much more relaxing and enjoyable,” she said. “They’ve [the seniors] grown so much,” from when she first worked with most of them as freshmen, she said.

All five seniors hope to somehow continue acting in some way after high school, whether through community theater or at college.

“I really do hope to continue acting because it’s what I care about. Theater has changed my whole life. It made me comfortable being myself,” Krueger said.

As the seniors near the end of the school year, Ruidas hopes that the drama club will expand next year. She said she hopes that “everyone who was watching tonight’s play, [could] see how not scary it is.”

For the upcoming students in theater, Bega advises four key points to ensure a great show for the audience. “Focus, energy, volume, and articulation. That’s all I got to say,” she said.