New year, new play! The DHS Drama Club is set to perform A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a Shakespearean comedy that revolves around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta.  The performance takes place during three consecutive days (Thurs. 02/2, Fri. 02/3, Sat. 02/4) the first week and two consecutive days (Fri. 02/9, Sat. 02/10) the next.  

Performing for the first time with the Downey High School Drama Club, Giovanni Ferreira, 10, auditioned and portrayed the role of Egeus, Hermia’s father.  

“I had auditioned for any role because I hadn’t really known about the play,” Ferreira said, “and I auditioned because I have been doing theatre since I was little.”

The play is comprised of 24 performers in total. With a cast this large, the challenge is to make sure that everyone in the cast knew each other, knew their lines, and knew what to do rather than focus on practicing their lines.  

Bringing to life the character of Hermia, Brianne Gonzales, 12, speaks of the importance of this chemistry.

“I think at first we were all just focused on our chemistry,” Gonzalez said,  “and a lot of people want to memorize their lines but we felt that it wasn’t really as easy to imagine talking to each other without knowing each other so what we would do is go out and get to know each other.”

A Midsummer Night’s Dream required spatial recognition of the stage and its objects as well as the movements while performing dialogue.  Lysander himself, Tyler Rivera-Whitt, 11, found this to be one of the toughest parts while preparing for the production.  

“The hardest thing about it was the blocking, like, the motions we had to do when we were in dialogue and sometimes when there were awkward moments,” Rivera said.  “But, still, yeah the hardest thing honestly was just making it seem life-like instead of just making it look like we were just standing there.”

A Midsummer Night’s Dream features other performers such as Denisse Alvarado as Helene, Andre Nicola as Demetrius, Antonio Diaz as Theseus, and Jennifer Hernandez as Hippolyta.  

 
This is the first play directed by Mr. Nelson, the new drama teacher at DHS and was in production for about three months. Their second play, Into the Woods is currently in its early stages of production and is slated for April of this year.