For 25 years, O’Roark created a safe space for students to express themselves.
David O’Roark didn’t always love theatre.
Growing up in Beaver Falls, Pa., the Worthington Christian theater director recalled being afraid to step on stage.
“When I was in eighth grade, I signed up for an audition for Blackhawk High School’s production of South Pacific, but I was too scared and erased my name,” O’Roark said with a laugh.
With that experience in mind, O’Roark has strived to make Worthington Christian Theatre a safe space. Now he hopes someone will carry on that tradition. O’Roark, who has directed over 80 shows in his 25-year career at Worthington Christian, announced prior to the winter musical, Amélie, that he was stepping down as the school’s theatre director.
O’Roark is looking into different opportunities, including working at Imago Christian School, a Christian school for students with special needs.
“It’s a bittersweet moment,” O’Roark said. “I think the thing I’ll miss the most is being at the back of the room, watching the audience enjoy something we put together.
“When I came here, I told kids the first thing I care about is I want you to be proud of what we do, and I want your parents to be proud of you. Anything beyond that is a bonus.”
O’Roark’s work has provided its audience with much more than two hours of entertainment. The director, who graduated from Huntington University with a degree in theatre performance, has used shows as an unconventional way to present biblical themes, build community, and teach life skills beyond acting.
Under O’Roark’s tutelage, the theatre troupe has presented a wide variety of shows, ranging from the spiritual (Cotton Patch Gospel) to the classics (The Music Man), from newer works (Big Fish) to the dramatic (A Few Good Men), to the Disney (Beauty and the Beast).
No matter how different the shows are, O’Roark is able to glean a spiritual message. The Music Man, for example, is framed as a message of forgiveness and redemption. Amelie shows the importance of having a community.
“Any story is in some way God-honoring,” junior Hope Spires said. “Mr. O’Roark does a really good job at being able to tie in biblical lessons to all the shows. We always talk about the message at the beginning before the show starts.”
“I want kids to understand that stuff that was not necessarily written to be Christian, per se, but that doesn’t mean that God wasn’t a part of the creation of it,” O’Roark added. “Just because the painter isn’t a Christian doesn’t mean his painting can’t be a beautiful or inspiring work of art. We take things that aren’t necessarily intended to be Christian and figure out what God can do with the message.”
O’Roark, who won Best Director of a Musical for the school’s The SpongeBob Musical at the 2022 CAPA Marquee Awards, doesn’t produce or direct plays and musicals; he creates communities. One of his favorite stories is about a student who tried out for a play for the first time in her senior year and then lamented that she had not tried out earlier. She told O’Roark, “I couldn’t believe how immediately I was accepted and loved by this group.”
Spires, who played the title character in Amélie last February, said what has made O’Roark successful is his ability to bring together a diverse group of students.
“The theatre group here has been like my second home, my second family,” Spires said. “I’ve always felt like I have somewhere I belong, and Mr. O’Roark has done a really good job in fostering that. Everybody here wants to make something beautiful, and that brings everyone together.”
While the program has yet to produce an actor with the stature of Robert Duvall or Idina Menzel, O’Roark is proud of the number of students who use his lessons in their daily lives.
Joel Godsey (WC ’18) said being in theatre increased his memorization skills and taught him how to accept direction.
“My short-term memory is very fast, but in acting, I had to develop more of a long-term memory,” he said. “You have to study the lines to remember them in context and out of context. If someone says a line, you have to know how to react as your character.”
The same is true with direction, according to Godsey.
“When you are in a play, the director might say, ‘You should really do this for this part,’” he said. “When you are working on it in practice, it seems odd or foreign, but you do it, and it ends up being much cooler than you thought it would be.
“It’s like that in life. When you feel God is calling you to do something that seems odd or uncomfortable, you don’t know how it is going to end up. After you do it, you look back and say, ‘Wow, I’m so glad I did that.’”
More than anything, O’Roark hopes his time at Worthington Christian taught many students to understand and value the arts.
“I ran into a former student at another show, and he came up to me and said, ‘Thank you for giving me the ability to appreciate this art,’” he said. “If I gave a couple of kids the ability to appreciate theatre, that was the best thing I could do.
“Society places a lot of emphasis on athletics and academics. I’m happy these kids also get those moments where they get to do the things they love to do.”
Editor’s Note:
Dave O’Roark will be directing his final show at WC this weekend (April 17 & 18), High School Musical Jr. We hope you will come celebrate his work and support the cast! Performances are on Friday at 7 PM and Saturday at 2 PM and 7 PM. Reserve your seat today. WC students and staff are free with the promo code provided via email, but reservations are required.