“I found out while I was in the middle of writing an essay and then I couldn’t focus!” said Kaufmann. “My heart is still pounding and I feel so honored!”

Brian Cappello, the director of this year’s musical and drama teacher at East, felt proud of the individual nominations but could not contain his excitement about the ensemble recognition.

“I am really happy for everybody. It is really great that they recognized everyone’s effort as an ensemble,” Cappello said. “And that includes leads, extras, everyone which is fantastic.”

East is distinguished as one of very few schools to receive multiple nominations. The nominees will be invited to attend the Blue Star Award ceremony on Thursday, May 24th.

For more information, click here.

Day One:

Day Two:

Day Three:

Day Four:

Upperclassmen:

Underclassmen:

Hiba Akhtar | Harbinger Online

Advanced Repertory is a drama class for seniors only. It’s the most advanced theatre class offered at East and students must take drama, actors studio, technical theater and repertory theatre prior to Advanced Repertory.

“It’s supposed to show what they’ve learned through their theatre studies, so we allow them the opportunity to direct their own piece and they do children’s theatre shows and things like that at a more advanced level,” Advanced Repertory teacher Brian Cappello explained.

During second semester, the seniors collaborate with each other to put on children’s plays at the local elementary schools.

“We have a big enough class this year that we divided them in half so one group is doing Cinderella and another group in doing Where the Wild Things Are,” Cappello said.

The class has given the students an environment to be creative and try want they want.

“Not only are we kind of each other’s peers in the class, but we’re also just a close, tight-knit group of friends.”

“It allows them to explore and study stuff you wouldn’t do for other classes because they aren’t ready for that yet,” Cappello said.

Because of the freedom, the seniors have decided to add a more musical component to their plays. Breckenridge explains that in one scene of “Where the Wild Things Are”, they pass out instruments to the students so they can join in with the “Wild Rumpus”.

“We have everyone playing instruments, banging around, jumping up and down and singing along. I’m holding the stick and just conducting everything along,” Breckenridge said.

Breckenridge says that she has really enjoyed being in the Advanced Repertory classes and had been looking forward to the class ever since she came to East. She says that the class not only has helped her with acting and becoming a better actress, but also by shaping her as a person.

“For a job application I recently had, they asked for leadership roles and so that putting in that I directed a Frequent Friday. I’ve actually gotten quite a few jobs from the fact that they know I can handle leadership,” Breckenridge said. “I’ve learned time management and how to get my ideas across in a way that people could actually understand.”

The class’ relationship with each other will be something that they’ll have for the rest of their lives. These seniors have stuck together through all four years.

“Not only are we kind of each other’s peers in the class, but we’re also just a close, tight-knit group of friends,” Breckenridge explained. “Anything stressful that happens outside of class, they know that they can just come here and just talk about it.”

Advanced Repertory has and will continue to have an impact on the students. It’s not just another class, it’s seventh hour Advanced Repertory.

–

The plays will be held April 13 at the elementary schools Belinder, Westwood View, Corinth, Prairie, and Briarwood where they’ll perform for roughly 100 kids. The first performance is held at 8:30 and the last is at 1:30.

To watch all the Advanced Repertory students’ Frequent Fridays, click here.

Senior Mallory Harrington and her cast will be performing “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” in the Little Theatre at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Thursday.

“I’m Emily Donovan and this is my Frequent Friday – and I have been waiting four years to say that.”

Directing and staging my Frequent Friday was vaguely overwhelming, completely exhausting and easily the most rewarding experience of my high school career.

It was well after auditions and casting before rehearsals developed a routine: a Facebook group, text message reminders, stretching, breathing exercises – plus some ground rules like “Text me back or I’ll feel insecure,” “Lines are on you – I can’t memorize for you,” and “Keep [your phone] in your pants [during rehearsal].”

With a fresh, inexperienced cast, the enthusiasm and etiquette were there from the first read-through; refining that energy onstage quickly became my directing goal.

Projection, diction, stage presence, defining character, committing to the moment.

Teaching the basics of acting was was like trying to explain breathing. Okay, you may not know the formal definition or the mechanics of breathing, but you know how to breathe. You would immediately recognize if someone wasn’t breathing correctly. You’ve been breathing for all of your life, right?

You live, you’ve got to breathe; you act, you’ve got to project, enunciate, cheat out, define a character and commit.

Sure, I could show them – I would speak from my diaphragm then speak quietly and make sure they could hear the difference projecting my voice made. I could illustrate the concepts – I would tell them about “Woyzeck” or ask them if they had seen the electric chair scene in “Machinal.”

But I learned from doing, and that seemed like the best way for them to learn too.

I had given each of them a few three-minute monologues to look over for the weekend and on Monday, they pulled them out, chose one and gave it their best shot.

Twenty-two rehearsals. One where I had them do Scene 3 speaking exclusively in gibberish – to help them to convey emotion and action without words. One where I had them swap roles – to help them see the distinction between characters. One where I had them lay onstage, turned off all of the lights in the Little Theater and led a guided meditation – just for kicks.

I was liberal with alterations to the script. Suggestions that came up during rehearsal which started with “What if…,” and ended with a laugh evolved into the moments onstage that never failed to make me giggle.

The due date for memorization had miraculously passed without incident. We jumped between room 213, the lobby and the auditorium to accommodate for the four other shows also rehearsing.

Pages and pages of lists filled my blue composition notebook – a flow chart with cryptic comments like “hand out for cup, keep forever,” “‘get in the kitchen’ more misogynistic,” and “door chow fun.’” I kept up to three different to-do lists, permanently deciphering my nearly illegible notes like “fingernail file?,” “hang up posters,” and “delete Q102.6.” I found myself knee-deep in spray paint, packaging tape, traffic cones and caution tape, attempting to assemble a display to post on the Call Board in a panic after dark the night before – and still loving every minute.

But show day wasn’t about me. It was about Olivia, Will and Anna, about techies, actors and audience members who may laugh at and one day remember “Robert DeNiro?” in the same way that I cherish all of my Shawnee Mission Wonderful theater memories.

I’m relieved the audience laughed. I’m ecstatic my techies handled the show so well. But more than anything, I’m honored to say that we all learned something.

I’m proud of you guys. Thank you for a fantastic experience.

Day One – Nov. 29

Day Two – Nov. 30

Day Three – Dec. 1

Part 1

Part 2

The theater department has worked to make sense of this convoluted classic and–more importantly–find the humor in it. Director Brian Cappello, East theater and English teacher, has made it his goal to take this Shakespearean classic and make it accessible to modern audiences.

“I don’t want the cast to be caught up in the idea of doing Shakespeare with a capital S,” Cappello said.

Cappello and fellow theater teacher Tom DeFeo have tried to make this adaptation much easier to follow by removing the more obscure, flowery Elizabethan references therefore cutting the three hour show down to less than two hours.

“Part of our problem with doing something like Shakespeare is that it’s an uphill battle for students,” Cappello said. “They know that in school it’s, ‘We’re going to read it, we have to dissect every line, there’s going to be a quiz, we’re going to watch a movie, and then we’re going to write a paper.’”

Cappello believes that Shakespeare wrote to be enjoyed by theater-goers, not just analyzed by English students. According to Cappello, the comedy in the show is universal and relatable to modern audiences.

Understanding the script, however, has been the first step for cast-members like junior Jessie Burnes, who plays Puck, a woodland sprite. Burnes had to take extra time to analyze her lines and motives by studying the script at home.

“You have to understand what you’re saying before you even try to figure out how to say it,” Burnes said. “We’ve done a great job of trying to portray this in a way that anyone can understand.”

Burnes too is confident that the audience will see parallels between the show and modern situations: the great King and Queen of the Fairies, played by senior Grant Kendall and junior Kim Hoedel, bicker like any modern couple and the lovers fall in and out of love more abruptly than modern teenagers.

Playing one of the four lovers, Lysander, junior Max Duncan doesn’t let the script’s antiquated language stand in the way of having fun with the characters and situations.

“I think [the audience will] loosen up and realize that it’s a comedy,” Duncan said. “It’s OK to laugh even though it’s Shakespeare.”

Duncan says that the exaggerated nonverbal signals make the show similar to modern comedies. In the show, the beautiful Fairy Queen is in love with a donkey man and characters groan, sigh, giggle and grunt their emotions.

“Having huge body movements and being really ‘big’ is universal in comedy,” Duncan said. “Just the body language is enough to entertain the audience and have them understand what we’re talking about.”

Student Director and senior Spencer Davis believes that not being intimidated by the playwright has made the performance more enjoyable.

“We’ve worked a lot on modernizing the dialogue and the emotions,” Davis said. “When you think of Shakespeare, you often think of big, bombastic soliloquies and monologues and speeches which you don’t really understand and aren’t very exciting to watch. We’re trying to find a human element of Shakespeare–the part that’s really fun to be a part of.”

Technical nuances help to bring that excitement to the performance. The set involves a slanted trampoline, forestry backdrops and 29 platforms, allowing actors to bounce, run and stand at different heights on the stage. Lights, sound and other effects are in sync with the action: fog and foreboding sound effects accompany Oberon’s entrances while whimsical chimes accompany Titania’s.

Each actor is further characterized by costume and makeup. Blush or silver hair spray and wrinkles define age while royal dress or dirt and stubble define status of the Athenian courtiers and handymen.

Oberon, King of the Fairies, and his minions’ appearances are reminiscent of the rock band KISS: black leather, fangs and red and black makeup. Titania, Queen of the Fairies, and her attendants are colorful, with blue, pink, purple and silver faces, adorned in glitter, leotards, and diaphanous dresses. Accompanying Oberon, Puck’s face is tinted green and decorated with a woodland tree while her costume is reminiscent of Peter Pan.

Junior Madison May, a Makeup Crew Chief, looks forward to bringing the fairy world to a whole new level of fantasy. Armed with colored base, glitter, false eyelashes, paintbrushes and the occasional facial hair appendage, May is excited for the opportunity to try techniques that other shows don’t afford.

“It’s just sparkle overload,” May said. “There’s a lot of small, intricate detail that we have to paint on with a paintbrush; everybody’s face is like a canvas.”

Costumes Crew has also ensured that no two characters look quite the same. Though the show has required the crew to make most of the outfits from scratch, junior Polly Haun, a Costumes Crew Chief, believes that the crew is well-adapted to adjusting to new challenges.

“We just kind of roll with the punches,” Haun said. “Every show is different in its own right and this happens to be one of them.”

By approaching Shakespeare’s classic like any modern play, the theater department has breathed life into the characters and relationships. According to Cappello, the script is, after all, supposed to be funny. The directors, cast and crew are confident that the audience will enjoy the show in spite of the perceived difficulty of understanding a Shakespearean show.

“Treat it as just a night at the theater rather than an assignment and you’ll be very, very pleasantly surprised,” Cappello said.

For a video about the tech of the show, click here.

Part 2

The Piano by Eli Mitchell

Quotables by Spencer Davis

Memories by Melanie Fletcher

Night Light by Jack Dee

Charles Waldo by Mallory Harrington

Overload by Isabelle Ciaramitaro

Geoff by Sean Bailey

Like the Lion by Devery North

Day 2

Reflections by Duri Long

Silence by Maddy Pigeon

Taking Care of Business by Camille Breckenridge

Michael’s Drive by Nathan Simpson

Here They Are by Angelica White

Cracked by Sara Cooper

Runnin’ Home by Alex Dressman

That’s Life by Jordan Davis

In Production by Emily Donovan

To read about Bailey and how he created the show from experiences in his own life, click here.