Glenbard West has done a numerous amount of well executed plays in the past, The latest show performed being the iconic story of Romeo and Juliet performed on April 18th, 19th and 20th.
Many unfamiliar and different methods and processes were introduced in preparation for the play to make it seem regal and captivating, such as fancy dialogue, beautiful props and difficult techniques used on stage. The student actors and crew were working together very hard to make it flawless. The Glenbard West Theatre team did a number of things to make this iconic play more captivating. For instance, the old English was slightly edited to appeal to a modern crowd. Although this isn’t a musical, there are instrumental ballads to make the romantic and dramatic scenes seem more powerful. The aspects such as the background, language and fashion were engineered perfectly to capture the romance sprung from a family feud.
The play was a five act show. In addition, a shortened version was being performed to every period of freshman English classes. This play is certainly not a simple show to perform by any means, and to perform multiple times is no easy task. For instance, there are 73 costumes in total required for the play, five of them being for Juliet herself. Another unique challenge is professional intimacy. Stage fighting coordinators work with students to make fighting and romantic scenes seem more realistic while performing difficult fighting scenes with a slight amount of weapon props to add to the action pact scenes.
Many challenges pertaining to this specific play are new experiences for the theater team of Glenbard West. One area of focus is the platform where Romeo must be during the play, though this sounds intimidating, the entire theater team is working together to push out of their comfort zone. Intimacy and stage fighting professionals have worked with students before in the past to maximize the quality of the play to accommodate the viewers.
The actual play was performed recently to the freshman English class and was executed beautifully. After the performance, there was an opportunity for the freshman class to ask questions to the entire Romeo and Juliet Cast. This question and answer session was very helpful to the students as they all had reading assignments regarding the Romeo and Juliet play. The play was performed in a lovely way by the theater team and allowed the freshmen English students to understand and bring Shakespearean’s rather confusing words to life into a love story.
In conclusion, this play was an enchanting experience that was very enjoyable and visually aesthetically pleasing. A positive outcome from the Romeo and Juliet play is that it was a welcoming experience for the entire freshman class and all students’ families. The opening nights for this classic romance are as magical as all the plays performed at Glenbard West that garner the same sense of community in different and unique ways.
