This year Paly opened the Haymarket Theatre doors to Kathleen Woods, a successful theatre teacher with 28 years of experience, after Kristen Lo ended her six years of running the theatre program.

Woods comes to Paly from teaching for nine years at Saratoga High School, as well as instructing various classes at West Valley College and Cañada College. She has taught and directed at all different levels of theatre, ranging from elementary school to professional productions.

Some Paly theatre students have already noticed a slight change in the theatre program, just from the way that it is taught.

” She [Woods] is nice, but she does things really differently. Before a lot of it was about getting on stage and acting. She wants us to understand the history of theatre – like famous people and stuff, even though we’ve already covered it in previous years,” said junior Alex Browne, a Theatre 3 student.

The basic structure of the theatre program will remain the same but there will be some additions to the program. For example, Drama 3/4 classes will work with a professional play write hired by Theatre Works. At the end of the six week period of working with the play write, students will write their own ten minute one act play. Around six of these one act will be selected by Woods and the play write from Theatre Works, and the selected students will continue to work on their play. On April 30, students will work with professional actors and directors at Mountain View Center for Performing Arts to prepare a stage reading of their play. That night, the stage readings are performed at the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts, and the show is open to all students.

“I’ve done this project for two years and it is just phenomenal. To see their work done by professionals is very exciting,” Woods said.

Sarah Thermond, a former student of Woods, speaks highly of her teacher, emphasizing her concern for her students.

“She was always supportive of my class work, work during productions, and of extra projects that I took on. High school can be a stressful four years, especially when you have shows opening while others are auditioning while you’re trying to get into college. There have been several occasions where Mrs. Woods really helped me get through those harder weeks, helping me schedule my time and just offering me support.”

Woods works very hard to challenge her students, and part of this challenge is making the productions that she directs as close to a professional production as possible.

“She worked to make the productions as professional as possible and it always worked,” said Woods’ former student Sarah Thermond. “She also never thought any material or challenge was beyond us; she had a lot of belief in her students, which always made taking risks and initiative easier for us.”

Woods already has the year’s first production underway after 55 students auditioned for “You Can’t Take It With You”.

“I am really happy with the choice. I know that Paly can dig in to really serious material and we’ll do that, but I wanted to come in with something fun and have a good time with the students and with the audience,” said Woods.

“You Can’t Take It With You” is a classic American comedy about an unconventional family whose members have a tendency to do whatever fits their fancy. However, there is one conservative daughter, and she falls in love with the son of a bank president. Naturally, worlds collide when the two families meet for the first time.

“It’s sort of like ‘Meet the Fockers’ except in 1936,” Woods said. “It’s a show that works really well on stage. It is a very popular show to do in high schools because it offers so many roles that are a lot of fun to do.”

Woods also plans on increasing the publicizing of the theatre program. One way of possibly doing this is by having the cast of the play wear their costumes to school.

“I would really like to make the program available to as many students as I can,” Woods said.

Although Woods has worked at Paly for only a short time, the school and the students have already made an impact.

“I love working at Paly,” Woods said. “Everyone has been wonderful. The students are awesome. I feel like I’m walking into a well established program.”