Montessori School students bring Shakespeare characters to Hollywood

Puck and Oberon get a taste of the glamorous life when they mingle with 1930s movie stars in the Durham Montessori Community School’s production of “Shakespeare in Hollywood.”

The show, written by playwright Ken Ludwig, follows the two fairies from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” as they arrive in Hollywood in 1934 and end up getting cast as themselves in a film production of the play.

Seventh and eighth grade students from the school will tackle this tale within a tale tonight at the Carrboro ArtsCenter.

Peter Piche, director of the play and a humanities and language arts teacher at Montessori, said the Durham school’s adolescent community program was created in 2005. Since then, the program has produced a show each year.

“We started out by doing some Shakespeare for kids in our gymnasium and put it on for parents and students,” Piche said. “As the years progressed, we wanted to try some different things. We tried musicals, and then we graduated to doing the play off-site.”

Piche said teachers try to choose plays based on the talents of their students.

“Something that’s interesting and unique about our productions is that we use all the students in the class,” he said. “Everybody is involved somehow. Everybody gets something.”

The program’s three co-teachers gave students roles before the school’s winter break, and the production process began in the first week of January, with rehearsals usually taking place during the school day in the afternoons.

Melanie Leyden, properties and costume manager and a math teacher, said the students helped her research and find costumes for the play, but she created all of the looks necessary for the show by adapting costumes the school already had, as well as shopping at thrift stores.

“As far as the costuming goes, there’s a party scene where they’re at a black-tie affair,” Leyden said. “For the men, we were hunting cummerbunds and bow ties because that hasn’t changed much from the 30s. For the women, we had floral dresses that had to be found.”

Leyden said the interactions between the 1930s movie stars and producers, such as Groucho Marx and the Warner Bros., and Shakespeare’s characters Puck and Oberon, lead to some humorous situations.

“It plays a spoof on some of Shakespeare, his work and how the actors interpret Shakespeare,” she said.

“Puck and Oberon do such a fabulous job of making it seem like they’re from another time frame, another land or outer space because they know nothing about Hollywood, and they just land in it. Puck falls in love with this whole life and convinces Oberon of it.”

Michele Widd, a Spanish, science and mindfulness teacher involved in set design and stage management, said she has a tech crew of three students who have helped construct the set and perform set changes during the show. Some of the sets include the Warner Bros. production office, a sound stage at a Hollywood movie studio and an outdoor garden.

Widd said “Shakespeare in Hollywood” has been a team building experience that has exposed students to public speaking.

“A theater production doesn’t succeed on the back of a single individual’s performance,” she said.

“It’s in everybody’s interest to support everyone else. It’s a great way to bring them together as a group with a common purpose and for them to celebrate a common accomplishment. That’s a big piece of why we do it.”

arts@dailytarheel.com