Shakespeare wrote about many different worlds back in the 16th century, but could he have ever imagined that more than 400 years later a group of kids on St. Croix would be performing one of his classic plays.
That is exactly what is happening at The Good Hope School this Thursday, Friday and Saturday when 40 students in grades four through 12 will perform a contemporary version of "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" at the James C. Center for the Performing Arts.
This is going to be no ordinary version of Shakespeare because it is sticking with the language while adding classic rock to the soundtrack, including such classics as Gary Wright’s “Dream Weaver,” “The Boy Are Back in Town” by Thin Lizzy, Aerosmith’s “Dream On” and some Led Zeppelin to top it all off.
“We have pretty Titania fairies that come out to classical music and then we have our Oberon fairies that come out to rock’n roll,” said Tori Baur, the play’s director. “Shakespeare is timeless – it transcends time barriers and it still fits in to the modern day,” she added.
Not only is the music rockin’, but the wardrobes, designed by Baur’s daughter Millie, are as well. While Titania’s fairies stick to the classic look, Oberon’s come straight out of a “Mad Max” movie, in camouflage with fur vests and gold chains.
Along with the music and extreme costumes, the most exciting part of the play is a fight scene between the main characters before the end of the first act. “The girls brawl, slapping each other and pulling hair, while the guys just have a girly slap fight with their hands,” said 17-year-old MacKenzie MacQueen, who plays Hermia, one of the main lovers.
“It’s funny, exciting and all the slapping looks real,” she said.
There seems to be plenty of action in this Shakespeare play, but the real drama happens behind the scenes trying to organize all 40 performers—only 14 of whom are in high school, and those few had to accept the role of mentors to the other 26 younger students.
“We have to manage the kids backstage during rehearsals and the play, but the hardest part is teaching them theater etiquette,” said MacQueen.
With makeup and dressing going on, backstage looks like the proverbial Chinese fire drill. That is where students like Eliza Mongeau, the stage manager, come into action. She doesn’t perform in the play itself, but she makes sure everything goes perfectly behind the scenes.
“I basically keep everything organized, from light cues to sound transitions,” said the 16-year-old Mongeau, who has been promoted to manager after being the assistant the previous two school years.
“My favorite part about working backstage is I get to find out all the secrets of how the production is made,” she said.
It takes more than one manager to keep everything working correctly on stage and that’s where volunteers, like technical manager Joey Barnwell, come in. He and his tech crew set up the lights, sounds, fog machines and visual projections for the entire play, making sure everything happens when it should.
“The hardest part of every show is putting the lights together because we have 70 to control,” said the 19-year-old Barnwell, who is currently a student at the University of the Virgin Islands but has helped out on seven different GHS plays.
This week is known as “hell week,” where the students rehearse every day after school getting prepared for opening night. Usually the cast is split up and practices in their own groups, so this only gives the director days to bring everything together.
“The tradition in theater is, ‘if its a bad rehearsal then it’s going to be a great show,’ but I want a great rehearsal and a great show,” said director Baur.
Everyone involved has been preparing for opening night for eight weeks now. They started with three days of auditions for casting, then rehearsing three times a week for two months, and finally putting the finishing touches on the set by painting the stage floor late Tuesday night.
Besides the director, this is a student-run play, with the youngest actor just 9, and the eldest 18. Even if a student had never performed in a play before, everyone that auditioned received a part.
“I enjoy public speaking, I’m very eccentric, and now I like the theater,” said the only 9th-grader who will be acting in his very first play, O’Neil Canton.
Even with the vast difference in ages, all the actors came together and now enjoy the Shakespeare language.
“When they all came in, they didn’t understand much of the language, and now the kids are really getting it,” said Baur, who also mentioned how the students enjoyed learning the way peopled cursed in Shakespeare’s day.
For the next three nights these students will try to fill up the 325 auditorium seats, while entertaining the audience with their hour-and-45-minute performance.
All proceeds from the play will go back to the theater arts program.
