Put yourself in the shoes of a 7th grader trying to figure out who you are as a person and what you’re meant to do. Sounds difficult enough, right?  Now take Josias Ortiz, who is having to deal with the struggles of being a middle school student, and he is learning and teaching himself the art of portraying ANOTHER person. 

Josias Ortiz is a 7th grade drama student at WMS. Josias has a passion for acting and writing. His favorite actor is Heath Ledger because of his role as the Joker in The Dark Knight, which won Heath Ledger an Oscar.  

Ortiz has a wealth of knowledge about acting for a 7th grader.  He explained, “First you have to know what part you’re going to play. you have to know what you want to do before you step foot into the audition room.” This speaks to the confidence that is necessary to have as an actor.

Ortiz continued to delve into what it takes to be a memorable actor, “You also want to make sure you’re being your character as if you weren’t acting. You don’t want to show that your playing your part well, you want to show that you can turn into a completely different person in a snap and that’s something that’s hard to do, but if you really want this you can do it and also just keep trying until you’re able to take whatever role you want.”  Ortiz really takes on the persona of someone else when he is acting.

Josias also explained how he manages acting and school work, “I just take care of all my schoolwork first, then I work on my other things.”

Josias Ortiz also has a YouTube channel named “Call Me da remix”where he does skits, reaction videos, stop motion, and short films Josias broadcasts a lot of his talents on his YouTube channel. He gets to show his passion for acting and writing through his videos. 

Mrs.Liastro, our drama club advisor explained, “Josias is in the Spring Performance. He is one of our actors performing in two skits.  He’s great at improvisation and his sense of humor really shines through in his performance.”

Mrs.Liastro is a teacher at WMS while also advising drama club she planned the drama club play and cafe night. She explained, “The most difficult part of planning has been all of the logistics. Because many students are still not in school, communicating with them and conducting practices has been a challenge. Sometimes messages and deadlines get lost in translation. All in all, I think all of our practicing on Google Meets and preparations have gone really well given the circumstances of hybrid learning.”

Why is holding these events like cafe night and the spring play so important? Mrs. Liastro stated, “Holding Drama Club performances, whether live or virtual, is really important to our school, even during the pandemic.  So much has been put on hold over the past year, and our students still need a creative outlet and a way to share their talents.”

The drama club students have worked hard this year and put on a wonderful cafe night and spring performance. Mrs. Liastro said, “Our students have worked really hard preparing their talents, editing videos, writing scripts and rehearsing for their performances.”