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Mr. Joe LaScala sat quietly in the middle of the auditorium and occasionally directed the actresses and readers to quickly get ready for the next scene. Junior Colleen McInerney held a wooden cross with nails hammered into it. Sophomore Sara Schwartz and Senior Taylor Kramer cried before her. The readers, sophomores Annie Palmer and Holly Fielder, whispered quietly from the front of the stage. The students are rehearsing for a new form of the Stations of the Cross called shadow stations.

According to LaScala, who works in Campus Ministry, shadow stations are a version of the Stations of the Cross where actors are behind a screen and a spotlight is shown on them to create a silhouette image. This image will portray one of the fourteen Stations of the Cross from the Easter story. The stations were performed at the Holy Thursday prayer service on April 21 in the STA auditorium.

According to Ms. Robin Good, head of Campus Ministry, this version of the Stations of the Cross is new to STA this year.

The shadow stations were chosen by LaScala and the volunteers for the service.

‘With how to do the Stations [of the Cross], I gave the students some options and asked if they had any,’ LaScala said. ‘We discussed it and came up with [the shadow stations].’

The Campus Ministry volunteers picked the shadow stations for their uniqueness.

‘[Shadow stations] seem like a cool idea,’ Palmer said. ‘It is a good way to keep people entertained because stations can get kind of boring.’

LaScala donated the screen that displayed the image.

‘The screen that we are projecting onto from behind is just some plastic piping and a large sheet,’ LaScala said. ‘My friends John and Drew helped me make this one before a scout retreat so I had it already built.’

Behind this screen were props for the actors to use.

‘We are using a cross, some boxes, and a sweater,’ McInerney said. ‘The boxes are for Jesus to lay on in the tomb and the sweater is Mary’s head piece.’

The actors and the readers for the stations chose their parts themselves.

‘We asked who wants to do what and the students worked through them,’ LaScala said.

According to McInerney, the exception to choose a part was herself. She was picked to be Jesus in the performance because she was the tallest in the group of actors and would easily be able to handle the cross.

‘I definitely have a new appreciation for Jesus,’ McInerney said after a stations practice.

According to LaScala, a passage and a prayer accompanied each station. He researched four different types of station reflections and had the girls read through them and pick their favorite. They settled on a passage from the Virgin Mary’s perspective.

‘We have never done the stations from Mary’s point of view and to think about what she was going though is very interesting,’ McInerney said. ‘I personally really look up to Mary, and as an all-girls school I think we can sympathize.’

After getting everything set up for the stations, the girls and LaScala started practice. According to LaScala, they practiced two times for two hours and discussed it three times before practicing.

The volunteers for Campus Ministry felt that with all of the practices and meetings they put a lot of time into these stations.

‘I actually put a lot of time into [the stations],’ Palmer said. ‘Last night I worked about an hour reading it to my mom to try and put emotion in [my reading], and all of the meetings we had were the perfect amount of time preparing.’