Record number compete for parts in Annie
By Liz F.
News Editor

Annie, the very popular Broadway musical for the past year is now the Spring Musical of 2000. It was selected over Once Upon a Mattress, Into the Woods, Sound of Music and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Annie is a play set in 1933 in New York about an orphan who spends Christmas with Mr. Warbucks, a very wealthy man, and how she is adopted by him.

Mr. Travis, music and choir teacher, is in charge of the play. The two other teachers who contribute greatly to the production are Mr. Cousineau and Mrs. Knudsen. They work with the various crews, whose responsibilities include making props, painting, construction and more.

Some early preparations include scheduling and getting up posters and sign-up sheets. It takes time to go through the script, and label and create parts in the script where it is skimpy. Mr. Travis explained that he picked Annie because it had never been performed at Peacock and the price for the rights to perform it was affordable.

Annie is going to be the largest play put on, as far as Mr. Travis can remember, but it is a shorter show, with only twelve scenes. It has a variety of named characters compared to past shows.

Mr. Travis commented, "Auditions were competitive." He had an extremely large stacks of audition papers, compared to past years.

Mr. Travis had many call backs, with many auditioners scoring well. There was a five-way tie for Miss Hannigan and a two-way tie for the lead role.

Mr. Travis said, "The competition was nice to hear. Most people really worked on their singing and acting. I was concerned with the talent this year, that we wouldn't have students with extreme talent who intended to be actors or actresses for the rest of their lives. But we had people come out and they did an excellent job!"

In auditioning actors, Mr. Travis particularly looked for students with strong voices who could sing in tune and with expression. He explained, for example, that if you were trying out for Lily, you needed to demonstrate that you could put on the attitude of the character to give it enough expression.

In each acting category, students who auditioned were rated on a scale of one to five on their diction (how well you speak), expression, loudness, and of course, stage presence. Mr. Travis added up the scores, and if there was a tie, he held callback auditions. If the tie still remained, he took a chance and picked the person he thought would fit the part better.

Overall, the lead roles in the play said they liked their parts, and were looking forward to performing. Sixth grader Allie G. (Annie), seventh grader Maggie F. (Tessie) along with eighth graders Kristin K. (Grace), Kristen W. (Lily) and David P. (Rooster) are all nervous about performing in front of their peers because they were more openly critical.

On the other hand, seventh grader, Andrea R. commented that she was more nervous about performing in front of her parents.

Eighth grader Abby W. (Miss Hannigan) was nervous about performing in front of everyone, because she never had so many lines in a play before. She said, "I mean it is nerve wrecking!" Abby's classmate, Ben Y. (Mr. Warbucks) said he was not nervous at all.

Several cast members tried out for more than one part and sang a few songs. At auditions, Allie had to sing "Maybe" and pretend she had a dog in her lap.

Eighth grader Kristin K. (Grace Farrell) added that Mr. Travis picked a good person for Annie. Allie definitely fit the part well. Abby W. said, "congratulations to all, and those who didn't make it, keep trying."

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Co2 cars start race to glory
By Abby W.

CO2 cars are a part of an engineering project that students create in Mr. Cousineau's eighth grade Industrial Technology class. They design and create cars from blocks of balsa wood. Then they attach wheels and add paint to the cars.

When finished, the students put CO2 cartridges in the back of the cars and hook them up to a racetrack, which extends 65 feet from one side of the room to the other. The race track is actually fishing wire, and the cars are attached to the wire by hooks near the tires.

With the cars in place to race, the racers puncture the CO2 cartridges and release the gas to drive the cars down the track. The CO2 cartridges on both cars must be punctured at exactly the same time for a fair race.

A special starter is used for this purpose. The students who have the best times continue to race and compete against winners from other classes. 0.7 seconds is the record among Peacock racers.

After the first set of races this year, Garrett K., with the time of .860 seconds, and Dave St. with a time of .861 are in first and second place.They won in their respective classes, thereby qualifiying for the year-end tournament.

Jimmy G. at .870 seconds, and David Nelson with a time of .900 seconds, posted the fastest non-winning times. "The times posted so far will be pretty hard to beat," said Mr. Cousineau, but it can be done."

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Chess final was full of suspense
By Alyssa J.

The chess club just held a tournament with an excellent turnout. Eighteen members of the chess club signed up to compete, making up five brackets. Sixth graders Jimmy A. and Mike H. played each other for the championship. It was a hard and suspenseful match.

In the end, Jimmy A. won. Mike commented that the championship match was the toughest he had ever played.

Ray V., also in sixth grade, finished in third place. When interviewed, Ray commented that he enjoyed playing chess because it was fun and exciting and he liked the competition.

Chess club advisor, Mr. Behrendt, said that he had helped students prepare for the tournament by practicing chess puzzles taken from the newspaper.

The next chess tournament will be held in mid-May, and it will be open to everyone in the school.

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