Stellar SHS Students Put In More Than Regular “Office Hours”

May 29, 2013

If they were ever called down to the office at Sydenham High School this year, you can bet that it wasn't for bad behavior. Both Jacob Sharpe and Jesse Bell returned for their 5th victory lap at SHS this year, primarily for a chance to be a part of the school’s 2013 drama production. Little did they know that due to Bill C-115, it would be they alone producing, directing, and designing the sets. They acted as well in the 14-member cast of the drama production, which ran from May 23-25.

The show was Norm Foster's ribald comedy “Office Hour's”, whose six separate and cleverly connected office scenes tell of the wild, irreverent and highly comedic lives of 4 memorable characters, each caught in their own stormy, controversial and very funny family, romantic, business and professional relationships at the office. Sharpe and Browne had much more work than they should have had to do, and so they do have the official bragging rights for this production, which was a highly entertaining, visually attractive and downright professional piece of high school theatre.

The two were met more than halfway by a very talented cast, many of whom were younger students and newbies to the stage, but who (as I found out later) found their voices and stage legs through the leadership and unbridled enthusiasm of Sharpe and Bell.

Every single member of the cast not only nailed their lines but also delivered them with highly believable comedic mastery. In scene one it was Fleet Brown who set the bar as the disillusioned, down and out, and very soon to fall further TV news reporter Warren Kimble, who was threatened with firing by his sexy but showing-no-mercy producer Pam (Taylor Drake), who ruled the stage and Warren with her firm voice and red-heeled stomp of disapproval.

Owen Orser was convincing and physically hilarious as the small time, lovable, well-meaning but easily swayed and misdirected film producer Gordon Blaine, who took the side of the increasingly tipsy and highly derivative Hollywood director (Connor Beyers), who made a comedic splash with his apish and addled ideas for the next big cinematic hit.

Bryar Vuyk shone as the lying, never faithful but still charismatic and charming husband of the deservedly frustrated and furious Ellie (Leah Gurrl), who wants so much to believe his lies and alibis but cannot due to explicit photos of his philandering shenanigans.

Sharpe and Bell played to great comic effect side by side in Scene four, a very funny family drama with Bell as the cartoonishly overbearing Rhonda, mother of Richard (Sharpe) her soon-to-be-out gay son. The two were joined in the scene by stellar straight man Eric Gordon as Lloyd, the reserved and severely hen-pecked hubby of Rhonda, who in the end has his own little hidden secret to reveal.

In Scene five, race track owner Stan Thurber, played to perfection by Kody Thomson, who definitely knows a thing or two about how to deliver a comedic line, is forced to fire family friend, the overweight jockey Arthur Barnes, who was played with gusto by Gavin Colman and whose highly comedic last-ditch groveling for his job was a memorable highlight.

Bell and Sharpe both were pleased with the Friday night show that I attended. Both students discovered their love of theatre while at SHS and have worked together in many productions there. “Since we've been working together for the past five years we really understand our individual strengths and weaknesses,” Bell said when I spoke with them after the show.

Sharpe said Bell’s strengths are “his ability to work hands on with the actors and his incredible way of getting everyone pumped up and enthused about their roles on stage. He is especially great with the younger actors and made them feel very comfortable and confident.”

Of Sharpe's strengths Bell said, “No one understands the mind of a character like Jacob Sharpe. I may be able to motivate but he is the person that truly understood everything in this script-the jokes and all of the characters. He truly shaped and cultivated all of the actors on stage and his role was that of the traditional director.”

Each one agreed that they could not have done the job without the help of the other.

Where are these two talented students heading next September? Sharpe will be attending a special comedic writing course at Humber College and then plans to study theatre at Ryerson, while Bell plans to become a teacher and will be studying Concurrent Education at Queen's University. They both hope to meet up again sometime in the near future and to do more stage work together. If their production of Office Hours is any indication, it looks as though they both have very bright futures ahead of them, whether on and off the stage.