Beginning on March 10, Mamaroneck High School’s Semi-Royal Shakespeare Company will host yet another great season of the Bard’s plays. This year, the company will put on three performances each of “Twelfth Night” and “King Lear.”
“Rehearsals have been a little slow until the last month and a half,” said Olivia Cipriano ’13 of the “King Lear” crew. “I think they’re going well, though, for the kind of play that we’re doing, since it’s so long.”
Students have been working on these plays since November and are excited about both performance week and the company itself. Now they are adding the finishing touches and memorizing lines and stage directions in order to bring it all to the stage.
“It’s a lot of work you have to put into it, but it’s worth it,” said Simon Levinson ’13, also working on “King Lear.” “It’s great when you get it all going.”
“I always love the energy and supportiveness the cast gives,” said Charlotte Cwikowski ’11, who plays Viola in “Twelfth Night.” “We’ve really become a family.”
According to some of the company’s freshmen, all the encouragement is very welcoming to new cast members.
“I really like it,” Holden Greenberg ’14, of King Lear, said. “I’m in some other clubs, and I feel like this is the one where the upperclassmen are the nicest and most welcoming to the underclassmen.”
This is legendary director Dee O’Brien’s 37th year directing since she founded the Semi-Royal Shakespeare Company in 1974. She works extremely hard in order to make the plays the best they can be.
This year’s senior company members’ departure will be an especially bittersweet farewell for Dee; she taught many of these students the year she retired as an eighth grade English teacher at Hommocks Middle School. Students think Dee is great, and everyone loves being a part of her company.
I have pretty minor roles, but it’s my first year so I didn’t expect much,” said Eric Meeker ’12 of being in “King Lear.” “I’m just happy I could partake in it at all.” From what I’ve seen at the Shakespeare rehearsals, King Lear and Twelfth Night will be two terrific shows.
