Alison Frimmel, who graduated from Chapel Hill High School in 2013, has been hired as the school’s new technical theater teacher.
While a senior at Chapel Hill High School, despite not appearing on stage, Frimmel was recognized as “Thespian of the Year,” a title that recognizes the most “outstanding theater student.”
Frimmel took theater her freshman year in the hopes of discovering an outlet for her creativity and a place to be hands-on but without having to act in school plays.
She hopes that, under her guidance, students who may not wish to be on stage will be inspired to explore drama’s other avenues for expression.
“[I love] to see kids find something new that they love about theater, especially the returning technicians—trying to see them branch out and try new things—and for the first year tech kids just learning what tech is and all of the different ways they can participate within theater and not necessarily have to be on stage for it,” she said.
While the school itself has changed since Frimmel graduated, Frimmel said the theater department is still a comfortable and familiar place for her.
“It’s a different main building, but the theater’s still the same so it’s kind of like coming home, which is really sweet,” Frimmel said.
Frimmel believes that, compared to when she was in high school, students have a greater freedom of self-expression.
“It’s really nice seeing students being able to be more themselves than they were when I was here,” Frimmel said. “Everyone was still very accepting, but now I can really see that kids can be their true selves and be who they want to be here.”
The day-to-day tasks in tech theater vary much more than in other classes.
“It could be that we’re setting up for an assembly that’s after school. We could be waiting to load in The Nutcracker, we could be building our set for Clue.”
Frimmel studied under drama teacher Thomas Drago, who contacted Frimmel as soon as he got word that the previous theater teacher was going to Texas to be closer to family.
“I reached out to Alison to ask her if she would apply to the job because I knew that she had been doing tech theater since she graduated and would be an outstanding candidate and she was very happy that i contacted her,” he said.
Drago said he is excited to have someone young coming in to share a different perspective and ideas.
“It’s always great, especially now that I’m this far into my career,” he said. “I’ve been teaching for over 30 years; it’s really nice to have young people coming in to take over the program.”
Junior Eileen Jiang, who has been taking tech theater since her freshman year, said she loves technical theater under Frimmel.
“You don’t just learn how to do things; you actually get up and do things,” Jiang said. “[Tech theater students] build the sets for all the shows. Lighting, sound, and all of that is controlled by the students.”
