Hell Week. Just the phrase itself is enough to strike fear in the hearts of the members of the Old Rochester Regional Drama Club. It means crunch time, and the cast and crew are working diligently together in order to put crucial finishing touches on this fall’s show, A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare.
For those of you who don’t know the plot of the show, Director Paul Sardinha summed it up nicely: “Couples who are in love that shouldn’t be in love have their love played with by the gods.”
The show, which starts each evening at 7:30 pm, opens this Thursday, November 19 and runs through Saturday, November 22. There will also be a Sunday matinee when the curtains will rise at 2:00 pm. On Friday morning, the drama club will hold a special performance for the school.
The ORR Drama Club runs like a well-oiled machine, and every person pitches in to make the show enjoyable for the audience. From concessions to the on-stage cast, every role is important to keep the drama club running.
It all starts with Director Paul Sardinha and Helen Blake, head of costumes. The dynamic duo have been working together for 23 years, donating countless hours towards making the drama club a place students enjoy coming to. Then there are the students involved in the productions, who give it their all, onstage and off.
The duty of the concessions crew may seem trivial, but do not be fooled. Without them, not only would there be no delicious popcorn and candy during intermission, there wouldn’t be a set on stage at all. Everyone in concessions is also responsible for helping create the set. They come on Saturdays for as long as they can and build a set that wows.
“There’s a good synergy and everyone is working together toward the common goal of making the set look nice,” said Emma Cadieux, a junior at ORR who is part of concessions. “And even if you don’t go to set construction one week and you go the next, you get to feel a sense of pride about what you’ve accomplished.”
And then there are the techies. As the name suggests, they do all the technical things that happen backstage. All the magical set changes that occur in (seemingly) record time are thanks to this dedicated part of the drama club. As followspotter Alex Wurl put it, “People don’t realize that there’s more to drama than just being on stage. Without the behind-the-scenes people, the show can’t go on.”
Costume people are yet another crucial part of the drama club. They work tirelessly with Helen Blake to create a unique costume for every person on stage.
“Mrs. B makes most of the costumes herself, but she has us help with the dying process, hand stitching the costumes, and adding pieces to each costume because each person, especially the fairies, have their own theme,” said Amberrayn Jones.
Helping with costumes isn’t only fun, it’s valuable, as Katie MacLean points out.
“You learn new things,” said MacLean. “Like, I learned how to stitch, which is a big accomplishment for me. You learn life skills – you need to know how to stitch. That’s kind of a life necessity, and you learn how to do that in costumes.”
As for the costumes themselves, the audience can look forward to the vivid hues and unique theme of each individual character.
“There’s a lot of very unique costumes. Paul and Mrs. B have definitely put a lot of time into each and every one of them, so each one’s different,” said Jones. “It’s not like costumes you can buy from iParty.”
The onstage cast is yet another invaluable part of the drama club. The audience can anticipate a magical performance from the fairies in the chorus. For this show, the chorus set up is unique in that almost every chorus member is a fairy, compared to years past where quick costume changes threw the chorus into a flurry of controlled chaos.
For this performance, the audience can expect bright colors and even a song from the chorus. Although this show is a little more lead-heavy than others in the past, the chorus is still excited to give it their all, and like Natasha Shorrock, they are excited to get the opportunity to interpret such a classic piece of literature on the Old Rochester stage.
“I feel like everyone sort of frowns upon Shakespeare,” said Shorrock. “Well, not frowns upon, but finds it a little boring. If you break it down, it’s hilarious.”
And that brings us to the leads – the ones who spend their nights memorizing the complicated Shakespearean English and picking it apart with Sardinha in order to perfect the inflections that were intended by the 16th century writer. All the leads seem to be in agreement about one thing – although being a lead can be stressful, it’s not as bad as you’d think.
Most of the challenges arise during the initial read-through and while memorizing the lines to try and figure out what they mean in modern day English.
Jack Roussell, who plays Demetrius, has a rather unique way to tackle the task of learning lines.
“Sometimes to memorize my lines, I’ll have someone hold my script, and I’ll say what I think the line is, and they’ll tell me if I’m right,” said Roussell. “It’s like flashcards, but theatrical.”
Although it can be a little intimidating to face such a classic play, the leads are enjoying themselves.
“It’s really just a learning experience for everybody, and I’m having a fun time with it,” said Roussell. “And I hope when you come to see it, you will too.”
Adam Perkins, who plays Lysander, summed up the general mentality of the cast in one simple sentence: “It’s given me an opportunity to do something that I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”
So, how does the show come together in the first place? Sardinha explained the process.
“I contextualize the entire show when I first read the script. I know what I think I want to do,” said Sardinha. “Then, as things get going, I finalize things. Plans get changed every now and then because certain things are not possible, but most things are possible.” He continued, “It’s always efficiency. I have to make sure things are efficient so that the scene changes happen quickly. We follow the script and figure out what I think might work for a high school show, and I always do these Frankensteinian sets for our shows, because they’re always way too big.”
The members of the drama club are excited to be performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream, even though Shakespeare poses a plethora of challenges, as Alice Bednarczyk acknowledged.
“It’s really great to be a part of Shakespeare because it was written so long ago and it’s still relevant today,” said Bednarczyk. “People don’t dismiss it; it’s a big part of our culture, and a lot of other great actors have done the play before so it’s really cool to be a part of that lineage.”
As an audience member, you’ve got quite a show waiting for you.
“The audience is going to be looking forward to an inexpensive night [and] a wonderful performance where they will see their kids, their neighbors’ kids, and kids that they don’t even know pouring their hearts out onstage and backstage,” said Sardinha. “It’s a night where they’ll be able to forget about what’s happening outside for a couple of hours.”
What else does the drama club have to look forward to? The most exciting thing is the traditional sleepover, which is on Friday night. All members of the club sprint to the cafeteria after the Friday show in a mad dash to get a heaping plateful of late-night breakfast. There’s singing and laughing and sometimes even longboarding.
After breakfast, everyone runs back to the gym where bouncy houses with their colorful plastic await them. Movies are played in the auditorium with pizza set up for those midnight cravings the members of the cast inevitably have. It’s called a “sleepover,” but between snow cones and the bouncy houses, sleeping is definitely not a priority.
Sardinha shared some wise words to keep in mind while watching any high school show.
“High school theater is some of the best theater you can see. It doesn’t matter which school, because all the kids at all the schools fall in love with their productions and everybody works very, very hard on them,” Sardinha said. “You watch these kids wear their hearts on their sleeves. And you know that it’s a genuine offering from them and they’re doing the best that they can.”
By Sienna Wurl
