Murder Birds lights up the DDSS stage
- Chris Abbott
- May 21
- 2 min read
Chris Abbott
Editor
With character names like Dove (Cloey Starks), Raven (Savannah Starks), Grackle (Paige Moon) and Magpie (Adelia Mirie), writers Jenna Thompson and the Delhi District Secondary School Drama Club were on point for Murder Birds, the school’s recent May 9-10 murder mystery play.
It featured live music between scenes, including the iconic Pink Panther theme performed by Chris Thompson and Kali DaSilva.
And a memorable ‘death scene’ flashback conclusion that brought it full circle.
“The beginning of it works to the end of it,” said Victoria Price, who played as Wilfred King, the richest man in New York City. “So as the story slowly becomes complete, she (Raven) is told to ‘clip’ her sister’s wings…”
“Essentially, I have to kill my sister, but… no,” said Savannah Starks after the Saturday afternoon show.
“She did not,” said Price. “She protects her and saves her. She never really had intentions to, just because she didn’t like Magpie... the flock head.”
Twenty-one students were involved in the production, said Thompson, including Riley Feyen, Riley Babbey, Bradley DeRuysscher, Samuel Carruthers, Neveah McCormick, Teagan Moyer, Adrian Anema, Emily Vanderweerd, Lynn Underhill, Edward Pauze, JJ Morris, Jenna Long, Hayden Mills, and Avery DiSabato.
Some had previous theatre experience on other stages, some just on the DDSS stage. All agreed in the last couple of years, the ‘tech’ has come a long way at the Delhi school.
“We have new sound boards and stuff,” said Price.
They also introduced cyclorama tech for the projection of photo realistic and background pictures and colourful backlighting.
“We use it as a projector screen,” said Thompson, a drama teacher at DDSS, noting they also have a new light board. “It gets better every year.
“It’s a lot more ‘moody’ if you can backlight your production. So, yes, we’ve had a lot of upgrades tech-wise… we still have a way to go. We have a bunch of mics, but most of them don’t work. Mics are expensive!”
Memorizing the many lines of a full-length play was a challenge, said Feyen, one of the graduating actors.
“I was learning/memorizing lines by the week of the show,” Feyen admitted before the evening’s final play.
“I would say the most difficult part of the show was the quick changes,” said Moon.
The Drama Club began its 2024-25 season in September, with the writing process for Murder Birds starting in November and ‘serious rehearsals’ in January.
Prior to Murder Birds, there was Hallmarks of Horror in May 2023, The Last Illusion (drama class) in January 2024 and The AI play in April 2024.
“The amount of growth, even that I’ve seen in the last week, has been incredible,” said Thompson. “I have my veterans, but I have a lot of Grade 9s this year and they are amazing. So good! I’m sad to see my seniors go next year, but I’m really excited to see my 9s grow.”
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