Evolving, Outstanding, Creative, Accepting, Game, Spectacular chaos. These are all words that describe our MVRHS Drama club. This Fall our outstanding drama club is doing Romeo and Juliet written by William Shakespeare with our two amazing directors, John Sweetland and Damien May. Romeo and Juliet is a play about two families who have been rivals for forever. Romeo (Lord Montague’s son) crashing a Capulet party, yearning for another, quickly falls in love with the beautiful Juliet (Lord Capulet’s daughter) Lord Capulet not knowing about the “forbidden” love sets Juliet up with the County Paris. Juliet, wanting Romeo and not Paris, is in a hurry to marry Romeo. So she and her nurse set up for the two to get married. Soon after they are married Romeo tries to stop a street fight, which if not would result in many deaths. Romeo ends up killing Juliet’s cousin Tybalt, getting sent away soon after. Juliet then tries to plan a fake death so then her and Romeo can run away together. This is where the story goes terribly wrong, Juliet takes a potion that results in a long slumber, Romeo without receiving this information sees Juliet and thinks his love has perished. He then gets into a sword fight with Paris, resulting in Romeo receiving a terrible wound and a dead Paris. Juliet wakes to find Romeo, but not in the way she would hope. She, being upset about Romeo, ends up taking her own life, resulting in the years long feud ending between the Montagues and the Capulets.Now, why Romeo and Juliet? We asked our directors the same question. “… I’ve told him to stop me from choosing Shakespeare, and this time was the first time I told him don’t stop me from choosing Shakespeare.” Continuing this Mr. May explained, “…we decided we would do Midsummer Nights Dream, which you know is not Romeo and Juliet.” Finally he adds “…what led me to finally, you know, putting Romeo and Juliet on the google doc was just the idea that if we’re going to do Shakespeare it might be better to do something that’s familiar to most of the students, you know 90% of kids who go through Mascoma have read it with me….” Then we talked to Mr Sweetland. “We have often talked about doing Shakespeare because Shakespeare and theater are synonymous…” He also states, “but this year it seemed like the students wanted to try it and Shakespeare is harder but it can be very rewarding…” We also asked them what they are most excited about while doing Romeo and Juliet. The answer was very similar. “Swords” Mr Sweetland told me very confidently that sword play is something he is really looking forward to, “…that will be kind of also a new experience for the students a lot of Workshop to go to have stage combat”. Mr. May also was very excited about the swords exclaiming “I am really looking forward to the choreography for it. I think the sword play is going to be a lot of fun.” He continued on about the play saying “it’ll be an accomplishment.” and “…but the lines are going to be challenging”. With all of the people I talked to that was one common factor “Going to be a good challenge. It’s going to be hard but good.” Mai Flynn, our assistant principal, explained to me. Lastly we asked them how they thought the play would turn out. “I’m optimistic. I think that we have a very good group…” Mr. May expresses this to me, “…there’s definitely going to be other challenges as well but I think they’re going to be good challenges you don’t go into Shakespeare and expect it to be easy” Mr Sweetland had a similar answer telling me “I am feeling hopeful” though “I’m anxious about costumes” He also explained to me ” it might not be the show we’re thinking of today but when we get there it is going to be awesome.” Talking to both of them really helped me understand more of the directors point of views when it comes to shows. Mr. May also mentioned “I spent a decent amount of time this summer building the script. Whenever you do Shakespeare you have to kind of create your own edit of Shakespeare because otherwise it would be a 6-hour play” adding that “at the same time it was fun to be able to go through and kind of choose the story I want it to tell. You know in my brain fryer Lawrence has always been a villain and in this edit of it he’s not, he’s more pathetic than anything else.” Really showing that even Romeo and Juliet is such a common and fairly done show, our drama club put its own spin on things and can make this show our own. Speaking of making it our own I also talked to some of our actors on how they were feeling before auditions. We asked some new people who have joined our family how they felt, “Lowkey both nervous and excited.” Sophomore Max Martin explained to me. I also talked to senior Jaiden Bates how he felt about his last show being Romeo and Juliet. He explains “It’s the most natural way to end my acting career here”. Speaking more on the actor side of drama club, we also asked a couple of sophomores how drama has impacted or changed their lives in a way. Izzy Botelho expresses “Its shown me you can make friends from anyone if you try hard enough” We also talked to Jillie Ford who explained to me that our drama program has made them feel “Wanted, Its made me feel wanted and accepted” Our MVRHS drama program is a family growing, sharing, and accepting others. Come see our drama club perform Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare adapted by Damien May, On Friday and Saturday November 13th and 14th at 7pm, and Sunday November 15th at 2pm. With our family of a cast we will do plenty of sword battles, tear jerking and laughable moments.

Written by Skyler Mardin