The close-knit, quirky Vanderhof family in You Can’t Take It with You, as they cause explosions, dance, eat candy, and refuse to pay their income tax, are quite similar to the Analy High School Theater family. Working diligently day and night, especially during their infamous Hell Week leading up to their premiers, the students in production and theater are incredibly close. The plays each fall and spring can be attributed in particular towards a particular person: the Analy theater teacher Starr Hergenrather.

November brought much laughter, amusement, and excitement to Sebastopol when Analy High School’s production of You Can’t Take It with You featured the talented student body. The alluring set, acting, humorous lines, and one extremely docile cat brought many viewers into the Analy auditorium. Starr Hergenrather, who has been the Analy theater teacher since August of 2001, once again awed the community. Having previously taught at Brookhaven and Rincon Valley for 11 years, Starr is a patron of the arts and works to support the local high school arts programs. With the help of her husband, she designs the realistic sets for the plays and then students and volunteer parents put the entire set together. These sets give the audience a sense of time and place and they can connect with the actors and theme.

This is not the only aspect of the theater production that incorporates others and involves lots of creativity. Starr is constantly trying to merge the various parts of the arts department, which is why she is often collaborating with Analy’s band and orchestra teacher, Maestro Kelly Stewart. Analy’s instrumentalists can be heard playing in the pit orchestra at some spring musicals, as they were last spring for Oliver! Starr looks at what the instrumentalists want to do which even affects the decision process on what play they will be doing. Occasionally students even write original music for the plays, as Nic Casey and Julian O’Leary had done in The Importance of Being Earnest last year.

In addition, the costumes for the plays are crafted by Analy’s foods teacher Tomi Smith with the help of volunteer parents. These are done innovatively, often adjusting various articles of clothing, but some are also made from scratch.

Starr’s vision and goal of including the arts department and encompassing a large expanse of topics is such an incredible demonstration of why the local high school arts program must be supported. When asked about this objective, Starr responded, “Theater is life. Theater incorporates everything. We do math because we have to figure out how to build the set and how to make it fit and how to make it go off the stage and on the stage. We do science because we have to make things explode or use fog machines…And what better way to learn history than through theater?” The beauty of theater, then, is that it gives students an opportunity beyond academics, while touching on academic topics.

The biggest decision made is what plays to perform. Starr’s process initially involves observing the students to see what they are capable of. The fall show is Starr’s choice, and she chooses a play based on “what piece of theater I feel is something that is poignant, is relevant, and is a good learning experience.” The spring musical involves a very similar process that includes a cast of characters that the actors can embody and from which they can learn. These choices often contain applications to what is going on in the world, including immigration, refugees, war, diversity, and tradition (including the controversy about gay marriage.) With this in mind, she sifted through a plethora of musicals, finally limiting the 2016 spring musical choice to Hair, which she had done before and was after the bombing of Afghanistan, and Fiddler on the Roof, which is about refugees, and hanging onto old customs. To incorporate the orchestra, however, Starr decided on Fiddler on the Roof for the 2016 spring musical.

In the end, however, theater is all about the family that is formed. The students become so involved and in spending many afternoons together, are an incredibly cohesive group. Starr comments on this sense of community, saying, “It’s a team. It’s a great place for kids to find a home. After being in this department just for a month they have a host of friends. We are very accepting. We don’t put each other down. Everybody is welcome. Because who’s to point a finger, right? It’s a family. And we take care of each other. Because that’s what you have to do on stage. You have to take care of each other. It’s not about any one person. It’s not Hollywood and it’s not film, it’s theater.”

This family is the reason that so many students over the years have found their place and many more have admired the work that Starr has done. The community’s support and the correspondence across departments is why Analy thrives and the plays impress. After all, in going to see one of Analy High School’s plays, it’s difficult not to feel this connection and take it with you.