On Thursday, Jan. 31, Advanced Drama students performed their recently-assigned play “Steel Magnolias” in the auditorium. The play was student-directed, so the performers had to prepare for it by themselves.

“Without [an adult] director, it was really hard to get everything ready for the show, and the lines were so hard to memorize. I finished memorizing them the day before,” Lauren Bourget (11) said.

The plot takes place in a beauty shop during the ‘80s. The opening act is of a group of cosmetologists preparing Shelby, a young diabetic woman played by Brianna Mamelson (11), for her upcoming wedding.

“She’s really strong-willed and determined. She’s diabetic so she’s really gone through a lot, but she doesn’t let it stop her. She finds out she can’t have children because it can be potentially fatal. She ends up getting pregnant and [at the end] she died; her kidneys failed on her,” Mamelson said.

Unlike many other plays, “Steel Magnolias” is not a musical, making the lines a bit different from previous sets.

“I usually do musicals, so there were no songs. And usually the plays are happy,” Bourget (11) said.