Although one could take a lengthy trip to watch a live Shakespearean play, the theater department prevented this unnecessary journey with its annual spring show. This year, theater teacher and director Jim Shelby decided to showcase one of Shakespeare's plays, The Winter's Tale.

With more than 45 actors and 75 different costumes, the play started out with a tragic beginning and slowly lightened up over time. The king of Sicilia (Leontes) and the king of Bohemia (Polixenes) are friends whose relationship falls apart due to Leontes’ jealousy. He believes that his beloved wife, Hermione, secretly loves Polixenes and carries his child. Thus, Leontes does everything in his power to punish the two. Later, he realizes his mistakes and regrets them, but it is not until 16 years later that his daughter, Perdita, and Polixenes’ son, Florizel, help reunite the two friends. “It’s basically about the next generation bringing both families together,” sophomore Michelle Lalonde, who plays the First Gentleman, said.

The first half of the play is set in Sicilia and for the most part, fairly dramatic, while the second half is set in Bohemia and is much more comedic. Senior student director Katelyn Hempstead said that working with such different acts in one play was a challenge. "It's very difficult because the first half is incredibly serious drama and everything has to happen really fast–the jealousy, the betrayal," Hempstead said. "The second half is this really lighthearted pastoral comedy and you just have to make the transition obvious but not jarring."

Rehearsals started right after winter break and the cast spent about three hours every day running through and blocking the play. “Being in a play is tiring, frustrating and difficult,” senior Gavin Morgan, who plays Polixenes, said, “but when you get on stage and you whip out this character, there’s very little in the world [like it].”

Ranging from instrumental Chinese tunes to an acapella trio, the show's songs appealed to some audience members, such as sophomore Angela Yang. “The sound effects were really good,” she said. “I also liked the singing because it was really pretty.” The Time Trio, which consisted of Alexandra Codina, Iris Latour and Chloe Zelkha, sang throughout the scenes, setting the mysterious and ancient mood with its captivating melody.

Unlike with most plays, The Winter’s Tale seated the audience on the actual stage instead of below the stage. Hempstead said that she and Shelby decided to arrange the seating differently because they wanted to "unsettle" the audience. "We really wanted the audience to be out of their comfort zone," Hempstead said. "People are used to Shakespeare being boring, stale and predictable and we wanted it to be very new and shocking."

This arrangement turned out to be quite a disadvantage for some of the audience members. “I didn’t like the seating arrangement because it was uncomfortable and awkward and we couldn’t see what was happening on the ground,” Yang said. Some people who were warned about this even brought pillows simply to make the chairs more comfortable.

In general, cast members like Hempstead were very pleased with how the play turned out. "It's a very challenging play but if and when you get it right, it's so rewarding," she said. “And I feel like we've gotten a lot of it right."