By: Bella Counts “Whether we be deathless or mortal, or of god or man, no one outlasts a tyrant.” Across five stages scattered in and around the campus auditorium, groups of theatre students performed skits this past Friday, July 2nd. Each act was centered around the prompt “written in the stars”. Along with these four words, students were assigned individual star signs and grouped based on their astrological characters. “To the mother’s, Be loved And be cast among the stars with love Where he can no longer shame you.” The show began in the Jones Auditorium. The introductory skit was run by three students: Quinn Gilbert, Sienna Piscitelli, and Bethany Pryor. Together they represented Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn, and they used their combined talents of writing, composing, and costume design to tell a story of Zeus’s upbringing, where each actor represents a different stage of his adolescence. It, quite literally, sets the stage for upcoming themes of Zeus’s pervasive abuses of power within their astrological universe. Quinn explained that they wanted to cultivate “this original mythos and theater experience that would soon branch off to the more modern stories”. The act concludes with a poem written by Quinn, and quotes from that poem are scattered throughout this article. Following Quinn, Sienna, and Bethany’s somber opening, audience members were divided into three groups and led to outdoor stagings, where they would begin a rotation between the other performances.
“The king turned his back on life From golden wheat to golden sands And with reckless abandon Hope turned to dust.” The air sign skit can be aptly dubbed as “The Trial”. With lightness and cleverly interposed audience participation, Izzy Twiss, Durant Long, Evyn Finch, and Saira Sadhwani focused on the exaggerated personality traits of their signs. Each played the respective roles of a bratty defendant, the determined prosecutor, a disinterested judge, and the infuriated plaintiff. We, the audience members, served as the jury, and the nature of the crime and many details surrounding it were selectively withheld to add ambiguity and humor to the trial. Through additional audience participation roles, “The Trial” became a living, breathing performance remembered by its wit, drama, and pop culture references. “And with omnipotent cackles of celebration, the king of kings toasts to the r*pe of innocence, to the spread of death, corruption, and fear, Zeus cast his trophy’s faces to be lost among the stars.” During this next skit, audience participation continued. We were transformed from jury to anonymous crowd on “The Late Late Star Show”, hosted by the ever so charismatic Aries (McKenna Lawler). Sagittarius (Sophie Taylor) and Leo (Kasen Walker) join the show as the leads of a hit new romance movie, and their murky personal relationship drives the plot of this performance. By adding a dance sequence to their otherwise unmusical skit, McKenna, Sophie, and Kasen explained the pre-established tension between their characters with symbolism and choreography alone. Following this entirely visual backstory, all of the conflict explodes in a quick tone shift, taking us from a lighthearted talk show to a display of burning anger against Zeus. Pounding thunder and screams from our host send us scrambling to the next performance, but the atmosphere of tyranny, manipulation, and fear lasts longer than any of the act’s former lightness. “Hollow cries on deaf ears confirmed the goddesses fears, and in guilt, the absentee prince cast a corpse among the stars.” Despite being set to gentle piano music, Mia Spies, Milo Timberlake, Donovan Sanders, and Eli Brown‘s scene explored the darkest themes of all four performances. Beginning with the meeting of their water sign characters, the skit shifts across themes of innocence, violence, and forgiveness as it progresses. Our leading cast members speak seldomly; the plot is expressed through carefully choreographed dance and emotive gestures, as well as the ominous scroll simply stating “ONE MUST GO”. As we watch each sign develop connections with one another, we also watch the group fracture in face of the choice that must be made: one sign must be killed, i.e. one must go. But this performance was more about our individual identities and how we bond with others, and less about the threats of violence. Mia, who played Scorpio in the skit, explained that “We also wanted to connect the themes of, ‘does your sign truly represent who you are or does it just happen to be your sign?’” Questions like these were at the heart of the performance. “…but to love is to fully give yourself and scar for others.” After watching each of these four entirely student-created acts, the audience was led back into the Jones Auditorium and through a dark room lit only by tiny faux candles carefully strewn across the floor. A video projected galaxies onto the back wall of this room, and a recording repeatedly asked “What’s your sign?” This final walkthrough drew the performance to a close, and reminded watching students of the prompts that grounded each individual act. Theatre students can rest assured that not only are their stories written in the stars, but they’re written in our memories as well. The full performance can be found on the Governor’s School East YouTube page, linked here.
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