Following the holidays, Advanced Drama will be performing its annual Shakespeare Showcase on Friday, Jan. 9, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. With scripts created by student directors and lines taken from Shakespeare himself, the cast is preparing to perform their adaptations of “Twelfth Night,” “Macbeth,” “Richard the Third,” “Taming of the Shrew,” and “As You Like It.”
However, unlike other drama performances, the Shakespeare Showcase forgoes the typical stage crew helpers. These plays will be performed without sets, props, costumes, sound, or lighting. Instead, actors utilize the four chairs and their fellow castmates to act out each scene on stage. “I love that the project forces us to rely on ourselves to make the show great instead of technical aspects…The cast is what sings the background music, becomes the props, and tries to create a setting for a scene. Working together in that way is so much fun,” senior Camille Meezan said.
One of the plays, “Twelfth Night,” is directed and written by seniors Eva Chevalier and Hendrix Zammuto, and features not only themselves but also Noah Thaler (‘26), Giuseppe Capozzi (‘27), and Cindy Tristram (‘26). “Twelfth Night” is about a set of nearly identical twins who end up separated in a shipwreck. “We use the chairs to build structures on stage, bang and shake them to get loud noises, and find inventive ways of holding them to turn them into something entirely different,” Thaler said.
Another play, “Macbeth,” is directed and adapted by seniors Emme Gerhard and Mena Dorsey. Other cast members include Cyrus Alexander (‘27), Talia Kardon (‘27), and Camille Peterson (‘27). This theme has been adapted from “Macbeth” to focus more on Lady Macbeth and her role after her death.
“Richard the Third,” directed and written by seniors Alice Olson and Mia Kelly, is about an evil hunchback prince who tries to kill his brothers to be king. The cast, Ian Munich (‘27), Kiley Martz (‘26), Camille Meezan (‘26), and Milo Tyner (‘26) have been working together to perform a loose adaptation of “Richard the Third” and turn it into something funny and entertaining. “Mia and I just wrote the opening scene, and then it just evolved into different directions from there. For the actors, we just put everyone where we thought they’d be best,” Olson said.
Next up, “Taming of the Shrew,” directed and written by seniors Roxie Tarantino and Kiley Martz, features Riley Guymon (‘26), Tyagin Desai (‘27), and Avery Kane (‘26). Tarantino and Martz focused on the character Katharine and her husband, who is physically and mentally abusive towards Katharine, as to try to “tame” her into being an obedient wife. As for Tarantino and Martz, they created this play based on the movie “10 Things I Hate About You,” while also adding a twist to their story, resulting in a circular plot that reflects the cycle of domestic abuse. “My favorite thing about the play is our subconscious version of Kate…Similarly to Hermes in Hadestown, she knows what happens in the story and tries to stop it from unfolding. We put in a lot of overlapping lines and I get chills every time Avery and Roxie deliver them,” Martz said.
Lastly, seniors Riley Guymon and Max Streubel wrote the script, directed, and performed “As You Like It,” a play about a father and his daughter getting banished by a duke who sends them into the forest where they take on fake aliases, fall in love with each other, and get married. Phoebe Wood (‘26), Mia Kelly (‘26), and Henry Sandoval (‘26) will be performing this play, along with the directors. “Our group’s goal is to nail every line, all of our blocking, and make the chairs look like actual props, as well as create something that’s over the top and new for audiences,” Wood said.
In addition to these five 10-minute plays, multiple students are performing in the “open category,” where seniors write extra plays based on a popular movie or series. For example, seniors Meezan and Kane will perform a play revolving around the “Twilight” saga. “My partner and I tried to include aspects of the whole saga of movies, making our play fast-paced and chaotic,” Meezan said.
Admission is free, and viewers will get the chance to vote for their favorite monologue to represent Miramonte for a chance to win a trip to perform at New York’s Lincoln Center. For more information, go to the Miramonte home page; make sure to stop by on Jan. 9 to view.
