With just a few weeks left until the big premiere the Hillcrest School’s Hurricane Drama Club is putting final touches on this year’s school play Press Start. The public is invited to come and enjoy the results of many months of work on May 30 at 7 p.m.
“It’s all about video game world. It’s all about famous characters that we know already. They’ve run out of lives and they got to find the way to get back into the video games,” explained Hillcrest School’s community education liaison Sara Pippus.
There also will be pre-shows where other schools will be invited in.
This year the cast involves students ranging from Grade 3 to up to Grade 8. All together there are 35-40 students working on this play including characters, people making costumes and props and helping backstage.
“We’ve had support from the community for different items and different things that we’ve needed. And it’s just a really fun time for everybody to be able to be involved in it,” said Pippus.
Press Start is a children’s musical and for those who enjoy this type of theatre, it will be fantastic and fun night out. Audience members are invited to dress up as video games characters as well, and there also will be some audience participation times.
“It’s not a requirement. That’s something that we put on our poster, that if you have a love for any of the Mario characters, or Princess Peach, or Little Mushroom, any of these characters, that you are welcome to dress up in costume or maybe you have a T-shirt with that on it and you want to wear that to the show,” said Pippus.
This will be a way to show support to students who dedicated their time and talents to putting the play together.
Children worked all winter long to bring this play to perfection. After Christmas the roles were assigned and then rehearsals started.
“The kids (were) auditioned for the different parts. The parts are put up at the start, and then the kids are allowed to pick which parts they want to audition for, and then they are auditioned just like you would for a big production. And … a small body of people … choose which characters would fit best,” said Pippus.
Starting this week the play cast will be practising in full costumes to make sure that the clothing can handle all moves and dances.
