Club Spotlight: Panther Players

by Sahil Deshmukh  & Gargi Kanetkar

As you walk through the doors of the 300 building, you can hear voices calling out. You can feel the atmosphere of energy pulsing through all those involved. You can feel everybody bursting to the seams with excitement about the performance to come. Panther Players is an after-school drama team that performs plays for elementary schools and senior living facilities around Pleasanton. The purpose of Panther Players is to provide free quality theater enrichment for our community and increase leadership and acting skills among students.  I enjoy Panther Players because it gives me an opportunity to get to know students in another light; some of them are students I have in history or drama class, and some of them are students that aren’t in the grade I teach. It’s a wonderful way for me to get to know them all and celebrate their incredible talent! This is Panther Players, an exciting club with one purpose: to perform to the best they can for their performances. As the director of the club, Mrs. Orenberg has put it, Panther Players provides “free quality theater enrichment for our community”. The members are filled with enthusiasm every practice, waiting for an opportunity to demonstrate their theatrical skills. Gargi Kanetkar (8) one of the participants claims,  “It’s a great opportunity to utilize your skills. It’s a really inclusive community and all of us laugh and have fun and stuff like that. We have really helpful directors and they guide us through the entire process which makes it really fun and we’re all looking forward to the final performance.” In conclusion, it is an enriching experience for students of all ages to be a part of Panther Players. With amazing co-actors and theater enthusiasts, supportive directors, and simply the love of theater Panther Players is the go-to option for anyone with a passion for theater.