NNB News

The empty set of “Long Day’s Journey into Night” awaits the start of last Thursday’s performance at the Studio@620. The calm set gave little indication of the emotional turmoil that would soon be pouring out into the audience from some talented students at Gibbs High School and their theatre teacher, Keven Renken.

By Ryan Ritter

St. Petersburg—Recently, a handful of local high school students got a chance to perform on stage alongside their teacher. The play allowed the instructor to teach not just through direction, but by example.

Pinellas County Center for the Arts—PCCA—theatre department chairman and Gibbs High School teacher Keven Renken gave his students this opportunity.

“I’m a big believer in ‘practice what you preach,’” Renken said after his performance on Thursday, Jan. 21. “I hope that my students learn from watching me act.”

In order for that to happen, Renken decided he had to start acting again. After one of his recent plays, Samuel French, one of Renken’s students, approached him and said it was good to see him on stage. It was at that moment Renken decided to bring his acting and teaching careers together.

“I began telling people what I planned to do, to make sure I actually followed through and did it,” Renken said. “It’s one of those things, if you tell people it will happen, then you have to make it happen.”

He immediately began planning the performance and decided on the play “Long Day’s Journey into Night.” The play follows the Tyrone family—James and Mary, their two sons Edmund and Jamie and the summer maid Cathleen—through one day. Given the cast is so small, Renken had to be sure he picked the right students for each part.

“When I decided to do the play, I had to think, ‘Who would look related to me?’” Renken said.

He decided that French would play the intellectual younger son, Edmund, while Jacob Stewart would fit the role of Edmund’s older brother Jamie. Another student, Amelia Johns, would fill the role of Cathleen, but Renken had to look beyond the student body to find someone suitable to play his wife. He quickly chose local actress Donna Grabill to play Mary. The two had previously performed together several times, even as husband and wife in “Anne Frank.”

Once the cast was secured, Renken was faced with the task of finding a suitable location for the play. It didn’t take him long to figure out where he envisioned the performance, and he soon had Bob Devin Jones on the phone.

Jones, the artistic director and co-founder of the Studio@620, is known for his desire to bring the arts to his community. Coupling that with the studio’s intimate environment, Renken knew it would be a perfect fit and was sure Jones would agree to host the play.

“We’ve done a number of things with Gibbs before, and here at the Studio@620, the answer is always yes,” Jones said.

With the play, actors and venue chosen, Renken had to prepare himself and his students for the upcoming performance. “Long Day’s Journey into Night” is more than three hours long and requires the actors to portray very emotional and mature issues.

All three male characters have lush drinking tendencies and they discover Mary had a relapse of her morphine addiction. These topics may seem difficult for a student to portray, especially given that they are minors. In addition, the small cast size guarantees each actor a considerable length of time on stage, meaning they have many lines and actions to remember and perform.

“The play challenged both Jacob [Stewart] and I since it dealt with some tough issues that we don’t have a lot of life experience with,” French said.

Renken began rehearsing with his students in November, in order to help them prepare for this task.

“We’ve put at least 120 to 130 hours into rehearsals,” Renken said. “Of course, I was the last one off the books.”

When speaking of “the books,” Renken is referring to memorizing his lines. This production was unique for him because he was both actor and director, a challenge he has not undertaken in nearly 30 years.

The cast put forth a lot of effort to make the performance happen, impressing the crowd. Jones attended the performance and thought they did well.

“It’s good for them to have professional experience, especially in a difficult play,” Jones said.

Renken couldn’t agree more about the play’s quality. He purposely chose it to challenge his students so they would have something on their résumé of that caliber.

“‘Long Day’s Journey into Night’ is one of the best American plays about family,” Renken said. “There is a lot of damage in the name of love.”

But while the story is about emotional and mental destruction, the play proved to be quite constructive. The students came away with a unique experience that will only improve their acting abilities and assist them in life.

“I learned a lot from this experience, especially how to prepare for the long show,” French said. “It’s a very difficult play and required me to explore so much of myself and my emotions.”