Charlo’s last play brings the house down
Daniel Martynowicz
Trinceton Brown and Tyler Delaney discuss women, life and swordplay during the performance.
Daniel Martynowicz
Jacen Petersen and Tyler Delaney slow-dance while Romeo and Juliet flirt in the background.
Daniel Martynowicz
Berit DeGrandpre as Juliet, having just cast aside her script in favor of an off-the-cuff speech, gives Trinceton Brown as Romeo more than he bargained for.
Daniel Martynowicz
Daniel Martynowicz
Daniel Martynowicz
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CHARLO — What do you get when you mix Shakespeare, “Gangnam Style” and Darth Vader?
You get what could be Charlo High School’s last play for the foreseeable future, and as organizer and English teacher Keith Grebetz promised, “We’re going out with a bang.”
The play was written by Charlo alumni and current New York University student Spencer Shafter and Grebetz while Shafter was home for winter vacation.
“(Shafter) is a prodigy and musical master,” Grebetz said. “Both of us are very artistic, so we hit it off right away. We’ve been doing high school plays together for seven years. He comes back over Christmas; we hang out for three or four days; I tell him what I’m looking for; and he writes the script.”
Scott Savage had a front row seat, working the concession stand complete with cheesecake supplied by the Finley Point Grill. He said he was excited to see the play because Shafter had written it.
“He was like Superman while he was here,” Savage said of Shafter. “He could do anything. He could play the guitar; he was a smart kid; he was an athletic guy; and whenever we would do stuff at the school, he was always involved. Nice, polite ... just an all-American guy.”
The play, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” combined Old English with modern slang and cultural twists. During the balcony scene when Romeo serenades Juliet and professes his undying love, Juliet (tongue firmly planted in cheek), read Google’s Old English translation of her speech. Fed up with the impossible words, she then tossed the script aside saying something to the effect of, “Whatever, yea I guess you’ll do; we’ll live happily together forever and ever and all that jazz. OK, nice talking to you, Romeo; see you around.”
Berit DeGrandpre, the actress playing Juliet, said she’d been involved in the performing arts since she was a child.
“I do it a lot and I have ever since I was young — it’s a good outlet for me,” she said. “It’s also fun to meet new people, and there’s a lot that can be learned from trying out new characters and their personalities.”
Grebetz said the play had about eight date changes and was originally scheduled to be shown March 11. In addition, Charlo returned from spring break last week, so the actors didn’t have substantial time to prepare for the big night, adding a fair amount of adversity to the actors’ tasks.
However, if a smiling, laughing and applauding audience is to be any indication, the actors and instructoras pulled it off in fine style.
“They’re amped and they’ll pull it off; they always do,” Grebetz said before the play. “They have a pretty busy schedule because they’ve got school and most of them have track, but they’re troopers about it.”
Shafter’s adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet” will be the last play at Charlo School District for the foreseeable future. A possible $200,000 in budget cuts forced the hand of Charlo’s school board last month when they cut five teaching positions and slashed several programs, drama included.
“We’re still waiting on the legislature,” Superintendent Thom Peck said Thursday night. “We’re just working through the RIF process and, knowing the legislature and how they typically operate, it will be a while.
“Senate Bill 175, which directly affects our funding, has a hearing on the house floor (April 8), but again, that still has to get to the whole house for a vote, so it will be at least a month.”
Ignoring circumstances beyond their control, the actors sent Charlo’s drama program out with a play written by a former student and wonderfully performed by current students.
