It was a busy weekend recently for theater students on NCSSM’s campuses. Left to right are Morganton’s Fire and Flair Players and Durham’s Promethean Players. (photos, left to right: Emily Cunard and Brian Faircloth)*
The theater kids at NCSSM have been pretty dramatic lately. This past weekend, troupes from both Residential campuses delivered top-notch performances in plays that explore the intense emotional dynamics of being a teenager: “The Outsiders” in Morganton and “Puffs: Or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic” in Durham.
Greasers and Socs
In Morganton, a cast and crew of more than 30 students from the school’s Fire and Flair Players presented three performances of “The Outsiders.” The Thursday-Friday-Sunday run in the school’s historic Barn entertained an enthusiastic audience of students, faculty, staff, and members of the Morganton community.
The play, written by Christopher Sergel and based on the best-selling 1967 novel by S.E. Hinton, tells the story of two feuding teenage gangs – the Greasers and the Socs – in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Adapted for film, TV, and the stage, the 2024 Broadway musical adaptation won a Tony Award.
Duffy Ward ’25, a New Bern native who came to NCSSM from Early College East High School, played Cherry Valance, the play’s lead female protagonist.
“The dynamic that’s presented between the Greasers and Socs can be seen in a lot of different ways [but] the choice on the writer’s part to make them younger and still have them go through some of the really tough things that they do, like death, loss, and hardship, is poignant,” Ward said. “That is what a lot of 16-year-olds go through. It doesn’t just wait until you’re older.”
Dr. Tess Nielsen, Instructor of Choral Music and Drama at NCSSM-Morganton and director of the show, envisioned the play as a new way to look at the story, making it contemporary and fresh.
“The story of ‘The Outsiders’ checked a lot of boxes as a good play for Morganton Theater students to produce,” Nielsen said. “We wanted to throw out the 1960s tropes and present a cast that looked like, and behaved like, today’s teens.”
Finding one’s place
Over the same weekend in Durham, 19 young actors of NCSSM-Durham’s Promethean Players took to the stage in the school’s auditorium to present three nights of the Matt Cox-written comedy “Puffs: Or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic.”
The two-act play supported by over a dozen students working behind the stage invokes the world of Hogwarts, but tells the story of the young wizards in Hufflepuff House who live in the shadow of Harry Potter. The show ran off-Broadway for eight months in New York City after its late-2015 premiere, then traveled to Australia, Canada, and Mexico where it was equally well-received. NCSSM’s production had more than 60 roles, which kept the actors busy with costume changes.
Robbie Stoffel ’25, a Mount Holly senior hailing from Lincoln Charter School, played two characters; Cedric, a genuine and wholehearted student, and Mr. Voldy, a dark lord prone to hilarious monologues.
“Being in a play at NCSSM is challenging in that it is always coupled with an intense school workload and other commitments,” he said. “Still, it is always so much fun that it is well worth the work. The characters I played in ‘Puffs’ represent both the silly side of myself and my friends, while also representing the complex journey we undertake in our time as students at NCSSM.”
Adam Sampieri, Instructor of Drama in Durham and the show’s director, immediately saw similarities between NCSSM and Hogwarts. “When I first read this play, I thought, sure, this story will appeal to fans of a certain 7-book series, but what I really saw in it was what I hope some in our community might see as well: a story of students who maybe didn’t quite fit in where they were, took a risk in joining a new school community, navigated very real (and sometimes overwhelming) challenges, and found where they fit, accepted for who they are, not just what they can or cannot do.”
With both shows now wrapped, NCSSM’s theater students will take a break from acting for a bit before gearing up again in the spring for “Mean Girls” in Morganton and “Cabaret” in Durham.
*Left to right is Morganton’s Carden Neel ’26, Sarrah Kitchell ’25, and James Norman ’26. Top row left to right is Durham’s Sadie Albright ’26, Adriel Simeon ’25, Perry Kim ’26, and Micah Wascher ’26. Bottom row left to right is Paisley Holland ’25, Louisa Weinard ’25, Kaid Muhammad Myers ’26, Eliott Wait ’25, Nandhini Thangamani ’26, and Rosa Miray ’26.
