Drama honors students to perform ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’ at One Act Festival

It’s been a semester of Shakespeare all around.

In their English classes, freshmen are reading “Romeo and Juliet,” sophomores are reading “Julius Caesar,” juniors are reading “Hamlet” — and “Caesar” was the school’s fall play.

In fact, according to drama teacher Sarah Thermond, the four seniors in Drama 4 and juniors in advanced drama love Shakespeare so much they have opted to perform a portion of “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” one of Shakespeare’s early comedies, for their final this year.

“Shakespeare’s great because it’s public domain and we don’t have to pay for rights,” junior Surbhi Bhat said. “It’s also really interesting because as long as you justify it, you can set Shakespeare in any era and costume the play any way you want.”

In addition to performing part of “Love’s Labour’s Lost” for their final, the students will also be performing the same play in March at the 2019 Northern California One Act Festival, where the team will compete for a chance to perform on the main stage at the California State Thespian Festival.

“One of the things that is always the dream of any student going [to the Thespian Festival] is to get to perform on the main stage in front of 1,100 people,” Thermond said.

The students will have to compete against eight or nine other schools at the One Act Festival to qualify for a mainstage performance.

The Falcons have never won the One Act Festival, but they placed second at the 2016 California State Thespian Festival after Thermond secured a spot by sending in a video of that year’s fall play: “Pride and Prejudice.” If the Falcons do not win the One Act Festival this year, they will be able to send in a recorded performance for another chance to win a mainstage slot at the statewide festival.

“I’m not too stressed out — it’s not a super high stakes thing for us,” senior Shasta Ganti said. “It’s more of just us showcasing what we’ve done in class and for me it’s more of a fun thing than anything else.”

The advanced drama students’ finals performance of “Love’s Labour’s Lost” will be held in the Thermond Drama Center at 7 p.m. on Dec. 14. It will be free for all to watch with snacks available for purchase. The One Act Festival will be held at Westmont High School in January and will be open to all viewers as well.

The play itself is a Shakespearean comedy about a King and three friends who swear off women and love to ”study as hard as possible,” a plotline Thermond said is fun for students to work on.

“It’s a weird little play, but we have the strong individual base and gender breakdown we need to pull it off,” Thermond said. “It’s got some really fun scenes with eavesdropping and even one where [the characters] dress up as Russians.”

The main cast consists of Ganti as the King of Navarre, senior Raghav Malaviya as Berowne, senior Mateo Morgenstern as Longaville, junior Emilie Prillwitz as the Princess of France and Bhat as Rosaline.

While the advanced drama students work on “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” Drama 1 and 2 students will be preparing a 50-minute performance from “Mutually Assured Destruction,” a compilation of short scenes about different sets of siblings, for their final.