Central Catholic High School Presents: Star Stars

A long, long time ago… in a theater near you… Star Stars!

Central Catholic High School was proud and excited to present their 105th production, Star Stars, on December 4th, 5th, and 6th, 2025.

Star Stars is a light-hearted spin off of the Star Wars film, The Force Awakens. The play follows Quoth Nevermore (Julia Laspina), former Scooper Trooper Chip (Amelia Phillips), ordinary girl Zap (Portia Angelone), and the loveable BuyBuy 88.95 (Addyson Plouffe) as they try to discover the secret to making a new Star Stars movie.

In reality, these characters are just caricaturistic portrayals of the characters in “The Force Awakens.” Filled with action, comedy, and a side of romance, Star Stars was a show that had you hooked the entire time.

Making it Come to Life

Ever wondered how the cast works to make the script come to life on the stage? Leading up to the musicals, the cast rehearses every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  Each day is dedicated to practicing choreography, singing, or rehearsing lines.

However, plays don’t require as much rehearsing as musicals do. During Star Stars, the cast met on Mondays and Wednesdays. Rehearsals consisted of doing an entire run-through of the play, or they may have involved fixing up a certain scene until it is “polished”.  These rehearsals were never perfect— many different things, mostly regarding interactions on stage, occurred— but they all came together and made the play come to life on show night.

The most intense— and fun— part of Theatre rehearsals is Production Week and Tech Week.

Tech Week takes place two weeks before a show.  This series of rehearsals is when the Cast and Crew come together in order to work on how the play will function during Show Night. And Production Week is arguably the most important and vigorous part of putting the show together.  These practices take place on  Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before the first performance, from 2:30 to 8:00. Yes, people in theatre put in days over 12 hours long during production week— over 14 on the nights of the production. On these nights, everything is checked to make sure it is running perfectly— hair, makeup, costumes, lighting, and sound effects.

Theatre rehearsals aren’t just all work though.  One of the longest rehearsals that takes place the week before Tech Week— Super Sunday— is the first time that all components of the play are put together.  Super Sunday is not just about rehearsing; it’s about bonding with fellow cast and crew mates over shared experiences, a potluck, and fun theatre guild traditions.

“On Super Sunday, we do a traditional dance in the Baroni with everyone, and the directors too” explains Julia LaSpina (‘25) when asked to describe a fond memory of the Theatre Guild, “so that’s very memorable.”  This traditional dance, comparable to the Cupid Shuffle, is a fun way for the cast and crew members to decompress and bond with one another.

Interview with a Senior Thespian: Julia Laspina

We asked Julia various other questions about the Theatre Guild. 

The senior thespian described her first show with the Theatre Guild: “I joined in the fall of 2022, so my freshman year— and we did Puffs which was a spinoff of Harry Potter. I was on cast for that and I played three roles.  There were actually forty-ish roles, but there were only eleven of us, so we all played multiple roles. It was a lot of good teamwork though.”

When asked about the most difficult part of the play, Julia said, “sometimes when I do choreography I have to quiet everyone down […] another difficult part could be memorizing lines, memorizing stage directions…”

We asked Julia how she felt about Star Stars being her last play at Central. “I’m actually very happy,” she replied, “at first I was like ‘where are we going to go with this?’ but then I was like ‘wait, this is so much fun.’”  Having fun with everyone in the production made her final play such a memorable experience.

Interview with a Director: Mr. Joyal

We also interviewed Mr. Joyal, one of the main directors for the show. When asked about the reason he picked Star Stars as this year’s play, he brought up the current seniors’ first ever play- Puffs. He wanted their senior play to be “not just parodying or making fun of” a pop-culture piece of media, but to show the deep love for the franchise.

He said that the most difficult part of the play is that it’s “highly technical”- it has many moving parts, like lights, microphones, sounds, music — anything technical element you could possibly have in a play is featured.

When asked about his favorite part of being a director, Mr. Joyal said he most enjoyed the actors “embracing [their] characters”, or making their characters their own, in a way that greatly improves and adds life to the show.

When asked which character he sees himself in the most, Mr. Joyal said that he most embodies Cant Soold, the parody to Han Solo. This is because there’s an emotional scene in which he shares something he loves with his son, and as a new father, this really struck a chord with Mr. Joyal.

When asked why people should care about going to Star Stars, or theatre in general, Mr. Joyal was very clear that “experiencing something that will never ever be replicated again” is a unique experience. It’s important to be a patron of the arts, and that’s why ticket prices haven’t increased in price in many years.

When asked whether he prefers crew or cast days, he said that it was a difficult choice because of how different they are. He said the difference is that crew days have tangible results, but cast days don’t give as much physical progress. That being said, cast days are more fun and will be what is performed eventually.

History of CCHS’s Theatre Guild

The CCHS Theatre Guild is no novice at making excellent productions.  Every year, since 1973, the cast, crew, and directors work hard to make one play and one musical come to life.

Their first production in 1973 was Guys and Dolls, directed by Brother Thomas Kirkman. This musical that followed the lives of missionaries and gamblers in a fantasy-like version of New York City.

Poster of the Central Catholic Theatre Guild’s first show (Laila Kim ‘28)

Although Brother Kirkman was eventually succeeded by other theatre directors, he returned to Central Catholic for the 50th anniversary of the Theatre Guild in 2023.