Part of the Advanced drama honors students present "The Nightingale" by Hans Christian Andersen
It’s not very often that children’s stories come to life but for two days, May 7 and 13 , part of the drama department’s drama honors students will be showing "The Nightingale", by Hans Christian Andersen, a story about a Chinese emperor who desires the greatest treasure of the empire: a nightingale. At first he cherishes it but later, he’s tricked into believing that the artificial nightingale is better and learns his lesson in the end. This time the production is directed by a student, senior Sheiva Khalily. Khalily has worked a lot with set designs in past productions, including the recent "Odyssey".
"I told them in the beginning [that] I’m not allowed to hold a pencil because if so I would [have designed the set] for them, so I let them go and they’ve produced what I think is beautiful," Khalily said.
Usually people would imagine that the nightingale sings but in this adapted show, a recorded audio track will play as the nightingale traditionally dances to it.
"[Khalily] said, ‘I want reds and golds and I want it to be as traditional as you can make it’, which is really hard becuase all we have is the clothes in here and our capabilites," Jenny said. "I had to [study] what makes something looks Asian, like simple tricks like an obi, [a strip] around a waist, or long sleeves and floral patterns. We had to do tricks like that to make it work."
After taking the director’s vision, Jenny was left with her resources to cut, sew and make what the actors were going to wear. With details like a dragon motif painted on the emperor’s costume and others on the hats and masks, the whole show may even transport the audience back into something very similar to that of Asia.
"It’s too cool: we’ve got a lot of different creative minds all in this one show and it really shows," Sorg said.
Other than "The Nightingale", "Just So Stories" another student directed show will also be playing on May 8 and 14. Tickets for both shows can be bought online at seatyourself.biz/montavista or from a cast and crew member for $6 dollars in advance and $8 at the door.
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