Deer Park teens bring ‘dead’ characters to life
Deer Park High School thespians will compete May 25 for the University Interscholastic League state 6A one-act play championship in Austin with scenes from Tom Stoppard’s absurdist tragicomedy “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.”
It’s the third time in six years that Deer Park has advanced to the state finals as one of the top eight contenders in the highest rung of UIL competition, director Kelly Lawrence said.
Deer Park advanced from last month’s 6A Region III contest, where the finalists included Friendswood High’s production of scenes from Frank Galati’s “The Grapes of Wrath” and Dobie High’s scenes from “Ahosi,” said UIL theater director Luis Muñoz.
Lawrence trimmed Stoppard’s 2½-hour play into a 40-minute one-act show in which the two title characters “see dead people,” like how the little boy does in the 1999 movie “The Sixth Sense.”
“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are very small characters in William Shakespeare’s play ‘Ham-
let,’ ” Lawrence said. “In the final scene of ‘Hamlet,’ someone comes onstage and says ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.’ But you don’t get any explanation why they got that way.”
Lawrence imagined they were hanged, and the play is what transpires in their minds before they realize they’re dead.
“It takes a while for a body to die while hanging,” she said.
The play, which won four Tony Awards on Broadway in 1968, includes the character of Hamlet, along with other major players from Shakespeare’s classic.
Lawrence added allusions to Samuel Beckett’s 1953 play “Waiting for Godot,” which shares the existentialist philosophy of Stoppard’s script.
At every level of competition leading to the state finals, judges honored Eli Martinez (Rosencrantz) and Alec White (Guildenstern) with best actor or all-star cast, Lawrence said. Sudden change of plans
Her students had rehearsed a different play, Linda Griffiths’ “The Duchess a.k.a. Wallis Simpson,” for six weeks, but it was scrapped when five cast members failed to maintain a passing grade in all of their classes.
Over lunch, Lawrence and technical theater director Ryan Heitzman chose to replace “The Duchess” with “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern” and immediately cast the new show with students who had had roles in “The Duchess” and their understudies, who each had learned several roles.
With just 10 days before the first level of competition, “we hit the ground running,” Lawrence said.
“This ‘recovery’ from losing five actors that ended up in our going to state will hopefully motivate all of the students to perform well academically,” Lawrence said. “Kids who perhaps felt they were indispensable to our play’s success, despite their grades, found out otherwise. Hopefully, this experience leads them to make better choices in the future and/or manage their time better.”
Lawrence praised the work of Heitzman and RaMina Mirmortazazi, who teaches freshman theater at Deer Park’s ninthgrade campus.
“First and foremost, as the technical supervisor, Ryan creates the world of the play and makes it happen with lights and haze,” Lawrence said. “He is also an accredited fight supervisor, so he directed ‘safe combat’ scenes.”
The ‘dead look’
Mirmortazazi handled sound and the actors’ make-up design, which Lawrence said “is a purposeful ‘dead’ look that offers some glimpse into how each character died. For example, we see rope burns on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s necks that suggest hanging.
“All the ‘Hamlet’ characters have ‘dead’ makeup, too, with similar clues to how they perished,” Lawrence said.
In addition to the title actors, the play features Adrian Melendez as the Player, who leads a troupe of thespians who are preparing to perform for the king and queen of Denmark. Melendez was awarded honorable mention all-star cast at both area and region contests.
Others in the cast are Miles Dolney, Tyler Haygood, Noah Myers, Taylor Stanley, Allison Gruetzner, Ava Porras, Diana Ruiz, Christopher McCauley, Trystn Cardenas, Austen Guzman, Isabella Martingano and Isaac Lopez.
Stage crew members are Ashely Petty, Cassidi Goss, Sara Waldrup, Nick White and Tommy Wilson.
Comprising the makeup crew are Katelyn Davis, Chloye Pool, Kaitlyn Salas and Sydney Sidwell.
Alternates are Nikki Marr, Trey Hiller, Nick Trevino and Aileen Reynaga.
More than 14,000 Texas high school students performed more than 1,000 plays in more than 300 contests, en route to the state finals.