To pay tribute to the greatest playwright and the Greatest Generation, the Moorestown High School Theater will be presenting “Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare, but set in the 1940s, for their 2014 fall play.
On Oct. 23, 24 and 25 at 7:30 p.m. students from freshmen to seniors will be delighting audiences in the language of Shakespeare, all the while dressing and dancing as if it were the World War II era.
Moorestown currently does not have a theater program integrated into the curriculum, so for many students the fall play and musical are the only place where they can get a more extensive theater education. When Greg Harr and Erica Scanlon Harr took over the plays and musicals, they wanted the theater to feel more like a program rather than just activities. So thinking long term, they decided to do a piece of Shakespeare at least once every four years. This year is Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing.”
“Much Ado About Nothing” was chosen as the high school’s fall play because Greg and Erica wanted to do a Shakespearean piece that was comical, familiar yet not over done, and didn’t have to be set in the Elizabethan time period.
“Much Ado stuck out as light-hearted, fun and one of the easier ones to follow because there is a lot of physical comedy,” Erica said.
“Much Ado About Nothing” is one of Shakespeare’s fun comedies that puts two pairs of lovers in a witty and suspenseful battle of the sexes. A company of men returns from battle and stops at Messina to visit the governor. While there, Claudio, a young officer in the company played by sophomore Sam Scheibe, falls in love with the governor’s daughter Hero, played by junior Olivia West. Meanwhile Benedick, another officer and best friend of Claudio’s, played by freshman Rahul Wadhwa, is constantly verbally sparing with Beatrice, the governor’s niece, played by junior Nicole Tsarouhas, despite being attracted to each other.
Hero and Claudio, wanting their friends to find love, hatch a plot to unite them. However, a vicious plot is in the mix to break Claudio and Hero apart. Hilarious misunderstandings, hasty overreactions, near-fatal complications, and eventual redemption and love of the characters wield all the tools of a romantic comedy, making a story that is, indeed, much ado about nothing.
“It’s been really great, a lot of fun to work on,” Erica said.
The students started off the first half of the rehearsal process working with the Shakespearean language, since that is one of the most difficult parts. They translated the text, scanned the poetry and analyzed the characters and themes. Students also were asked to speak to family members from the 1940s to learn not only about the era, but also about their family and their family’s connection to the time period.
“Since the students don’t have acting classes, we want the program to act as an educational experience as well as a performance experience,” Erica said. “We really want them to appreciate the time period and appreciate the language and Shakespeare.”
Then once lines were understood and memorized, which students claimed was one of the hardest parts, they set to learn the blocking on a bare minimum stage, dancing of the 1940s, and finding the emotion within their characters.
“It has been fun to explore the different kinds of emotions that Beatrice has,” Tsarouhas said.
“It’s a really fun experience; I love the theater program here,” Scheibe said.
Erica commended her talented group of actors and promises the night will be full of laughter and nostalgia. Because “Much Ado About Nothing” is a challenging piece of literature and such a classic, she said to expect to be impressed with the students.
“People should come to the show because it is cool to see Shakespeare in a different time. A lot of people find Shakespeare boring or hard, but after this experience I feel people will find it to be an exciting show because we do a good job of trying to explain what is going on,” West said.
Performances will take place in the Moorestown High School auditorium, located at 350 Bridgeboro Road, on Thursday, Oct. 23, Friday, Oct. 24, and Saturday, Oct. 25. All performances are at 7:30 p.m. All tickets are $10 and can be purchased at www.moorestownhs theater.weebly.com, at the school lobby and at the door the nights of the shows.
For more information, find “Moorestown High School Theater” on Facebook or visit www.moorestownhstheater.wee bly.com. Questions, call the high school at (856) 778–6610 ext. 22368 or e-mail moorestownhstheater @gmail.com.
