Thursday, July 10, 2025
The Backyard Players & Friends brought its annual theater production to life this year with a fresh twist: an original show written and choreographed entirely by three South Side High School students.
Megan Chiara, 17, Charlotte Rocafort, 17, and Amalia Breen, 16, developed “Backyard Olympics,” a colorful, high-energy performance that followed performers from the Backyard Players on a whimsical journey across the globe in search of the Olympic torch. The show was the culmination of the Backyard Players’ summer theater program.
The idea was sparked by a conversation with Ellen White, the program’s co-founder, who mentioned that in earlier years, students had taken the reins creatively. Chiara, who started volunteering at Backyard Players & Friends in her freshman year of high school, and Rocafort and Breen, who started volunteering the summer before their junior years, instantly became interested.
“Me and Charlotte said, ‘That sounds like such a positive and rewarding experience,” Chiara said, and Breen agreed.
They began brainstorming and shaping the script. Much of their inspiration came from the Olympic-style games they had already been playing with the Backyard Players during the program. That playfulness helped set the tone for the final production.
“All [last] summer, we’d been playing Olympic games,” Breen said. “So, I said, ‘What if we did the Olympics for the show?’”
The result was a multi-scene show in which performers were divided into four international teams, each representing two different countries with their own music and dances. Chiara, Rocafort, and Breen each took on choreography duties, helped shape dialogue and transitions and led rehearsals with the cast.
Performers started the search for the torch in Greece, then made their way to Italy, England, Canada, France, and Ireland. Each stop highlighted the performers’ singing and dancing abilities that gave an immersive experience to the countries, earning resounding applause from the packed theatre.
The three students talked about how they balanced their school schedules with their creative responsibilities, often carving out time during off-periods or right before other classes.
Even with limited rehearsal time — just one hour a week, over nine weeks — the show came together through focused collaboration between the students, staff members, and volunteers.
“Everyone was collaborating, everyone was working simultaneously,” Rocafort said, “different tasks, but all for the same thing.”
When the show culminated in front of an audience, it was a powerful moment for the students, who had poured months of effort into the production.
“I remember the first time that they came in and we did it together, we were all standing there in the corner and our mouths were wide open,” Rocafort said, “and we were so proud of what we had accomplished.”
Beyond the performance itself, the experience meant something deeper to the students — as friends who had grown up together in the local theater community and as volunteers working with the Backyard Players.
“Since we had the privilege of working together all year, it’s so impactful, because we see how hard each individual participant works,” Chiara said.
White was happy with the outcome of the performance. She said that the collaboration of the three South Side students with the Backyard Players was “true authentic inclusion.”
“Being here on the stage, doing shows and theatre, it helps to blur the lines,” she said, “because everybody’s just working together, and it doesn’t matter who you’re standing next to, you’re just putting on a show.”
