Maple Avenue Evening High School - Progress Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

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The Dramatic Department High Spots of the Past Year By THE CLASS CRITIC HE Dramatic Class in the Maple Avenue Evening, High School has come to be known far and wide as the Cellar Players . Oh! yes, gentle reader, there is a dramatic department in this school and it fits into the scheme of things most admirably for, besides furnishing an opportunity for the histrionically inclined to acquire train- ing in that subject, it provides an opportunity for valuable, first-hand practice for several of the other classes, such 'as the sheet metal, electrical, art and orchestra departments, in stage building, lighting, decorating and music. To this dramatic class young men and women come from various trades, callings and professions to receive training in correct pronunciation, enunciation, diction, voice and poise, to cultivate their memories and, per- haps most important of all, to acquire the art of correct public speaking - the art which, above all others, helps people to make a success in the world in both business and social activities. Here also they get a knowledge of stage effect, the art of make-up and of the staging and direction of plays and pantomimes which fits them to take part in entertainments and theatricals without embarassment. Working in conjunction with the sheet metal, electrical and art classes, a stage set is erected and fittingly decorated and the necessary footlights, telephones and other contrivances installed and occasionally a Cellar Players' night is announced, when, assisted by the orchestra class, a short entertainment is given to which the students of all the other departments are summoned. Always, following one of those Cellar Players' nights a most happy, satisfied throng may be seen wending its way up from the school quarters. L Page Seventy-one

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What ls Progress? Taken from an article in the Thirty-third Year Book of the Inter- national Printing Pressmen, written by former President Woodrow Wilson. I am forced to be -a progressive, if for no other reason, because we have not kept up with our changes of conditions, either in the economic field or in the political field. We have not kept up as well as other na- tions have . All progress depends on how fast you are going and where you are going, and I fear there has been too much of this thing of knowing neither how fast we were going nor where we Were going. I have my private belief that we have been doing most of our progressiveness after the fashion of those things that in my boyhood days we called tread- mills ,-a treadmill being a moving platform with cleats on it, on which some poor devil of a mule was forced to walk forever without getting anywhere. Elephants and even other animals have been known to turn treadmills, making a good deal of noise and causing certain wheels to go round, and I dare say grinding out some sort of product for somebody, but without achieving much progress. Progress!. Did you ever reflect that that word is almost a new one? No word comes more often or more naturally to the lips of modern man, as if the thing it stands for were almost synonomous with life itself, and yet men through many thousand years never talked or thought of progress. They thought in the other direction. Their stories of heroisms and glory were tales of the past. The ancestors wore the heavier armor and carried the larger spear. There were giants in those days. Now all that has altered. We think of the future, not of the past, as the more glorious time in comparison with which the present is nothing. Progress, development-those are modern words. The modern idea is to leavethe past and press on to something new. Page Seventy -1

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How Class Was Named But how cum this name Cellar Players' you would probably like to ask. Well now, if you will just sail on, like Columbus of old, you will learn. Some three years ago a few ambitious young people came to thefrooms of the Maple Avenue School in the basement of the great building at 540 Maple Avenue Where vocational and trade extension Work was being taught, and applied for a classiin dramatics and oral expressionf The request Was favorably received by the principal of the school, Mrs. Sadie C. Atherton, Whose constant enthusiasm and encouragement has been a great help and inspiration to this department ever since. V A meeting was held in the basement or cellar and a dramatic class formed under the direction of Miss Araxie Jamgochain. Later as this class progressed and commenced to give amateur entertainments some one named it the Cellar Players' and by that name it has come to be gener- ally known. i This class met three times a Week in the largest room in the down- stairs quarters - their studio. Studio is quite the appropriate name for Members of Dramatic Class l In Scene in The Pot Boilers be Page Seventy-two