James Franco stops by the Palo Alto Children’s Theatre to watch and film his mother’s play “Metamorphosis: Junior Year” for his documentary. – Haelin ChoPalo Alto High School alumnus James Franco plans to release a documentary based on his mother’s production of her play “Metamorphosis: Junior Year.”

The documentary depicts the process of producing “Metamorphosis: Junior Year,” which is currently running at the Palo Alto Children’s Theatre until Saturday, March 12.

To obtain the necessary footage, Franco stopped by the Children’s Theatre on Monday, March 7, to film the entire performance of “Metamorphosis: Junior Year.”

Although the Monday show was considered a performance, Franco said its purpose was solely to get the shots needed for the documentary.

According to Franco, the subject matter of “Metamorphosis: Junior Year” makes it relatable to teenagers.

“The characters in the play are young people that are trying to figure out their lives or figure out who they are,” Franco said. “Most of the characters are creative, and so by getting behind the scenes and showing the process of actually putting on a play like that, it kind of parallels the characters in the play, and so I thought if you were going to document any kind of play that was put on, this would be a good one.”

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Franco added that the relation of “Metamorphosis: Junior Year” to his his mother’s involvement in this particular play also made him interested in documenting it.

According to Gunn junior Ryan Lee, who started helping the documentary crew when his two brothers auditioned for the play, the process of creating the documentary has taken a lot of work.

“Making a documentary mainly is getting as much footage as you can, and that’s what I worked on – walking around with any kind of camera I could use and filming everything that was going on,” Lee said.

Paly senior Layla Moheimani, who is also part of the documentary crew, said the crew has been filming workshops, staged readings, rehearsals and performances of the play.

At the moment, the documentary does not have a scheduled release date.

“We [the documentary crew] just shot it,” Franco said. “We’re editing it, and we’ll see where we take it from there.”

Lee says that when the documentary does come out, it will be worth watching.

“I think at least it [the documentary] will be extremely interesting for people who were in the play, or in general those involved in theater, and from what I saw, it has the potential to be a really cool film,” Lee said.