By STEPHANIE BUNKER
Moapa Valley Progress
Moapa Valley High School students Robyn Foster and Taylor Cordarro had the opportunity to watch a play that they had written come to life at the Pirate Fest in Las Vegas on Saturday, April 26.
Foster and Cordarro wrote an adaptation of Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet and entered it into competition. The winners of the competition were to be performed at the Pirate Fest located at Lorenzi Park in North Las Vegas.
As it ended up, Foster’s and Cordarro’s play was the only one submitted for the competition. This gave the Moapa Valley High School Theater I class the chance to perform the play four times throughout the day during the festival.
The Theater I class taught by Valerie Soltis helped Foster and Cordarro execute the melodrama. If it weren’t for this opportunity, the class would not have had the chance to perform a play in front of a live audience this year at all.
“This was a good experience for them to get in front of people they didn’t know,” said Robyn’s mother Myrna Foster.
Robyn said the experience taught her how to accept criticism and improv with others while, at the same time, sticking to a script. She also learned to project her voice so the audience could hear her.
The Pirate Fest is a festival that “celebrates Pirates, Faeries, and Steampunks”. Those in attendance were invited to dress up as one of these characters and play the part for the day. There were shops to browse activities to do and acts to watch for those attending the festival.
The play performed by the MVHS Theater class seemed to draw some good attention from those attending the Pirate Fest. As the Theater class performed the play they interacted with the audience, holding up signs indicating how they were to react to the scenes.
Some in the audience really got into the characters. Foster said her favorite part of the whole experience was while she was playing the villain and fell off the stage, which was written in the script.But to her surprise a little boy came and attacked her with his fake sword.
The Theater class began practicing the play about a month in advance, Foster said that even though they had to perform the play four times throughout the day each performance felt pretty good because they had practiced it so much.
The play lasted 30 minutes and was required to use Pirates, Faeries, or Steampunks in the plot. So Foster and Cordarro included all three types of characters in it.
The Romeo and Juliet inspired play featured a war between the Faeries and Sky Pirates. It included romance, fighting, and compromise leading to peace between the two groups.
Foster said it was a cool experience to be able to write the play and see it come to life. Although she had a lot of fun she said her play writing days were probably over for now. But she does want to pursue Theater while in highschool.
