Fall Play Preview: The Greenbird Takes Flight

With The Greenbird by Carlo Gozzi, the School’s Annual Fall Play, coming out November 16th through November 19th, the actors are anything but bored. Senior Roxie Sweetstevens says she is “incredibly excited” to perform in front of her family and the student body. Head Royce’s version is a modernized form of the original play by Gozzi. It touches on contemporary satire to create a more entertaining environment for the audience.  The Italian comedy has been reworked by Mr. Spear and four seniors: Clare Luskin, Dahlia Peeters, Charlotte Ragonese, and Noa Gutkin. 

The play features two teenage girls who run away from home, intending to fight the bourgeois. After leaving, they encounter a mythical creature who instructs them to throw magical pebbles to create a house. When their magical house attracts the attention of nearby neighbors, the villains of the play send the protagonists on a quest for magical jewels.

They have modified the play to make it more palpable to the audience but mainly, according to Peeters, to remove all the “long paragraph lines.” Their adaptation begins in England during the 1920s rather than “Italy in the 1700s, or some time really really long ago”, says Peeters. Rather than choosing a classic play such as Shakespeare or Little Women, the students wanted something original. Greenbird, through its re-adaptation, offers a unique play that, according to Luskin, “is sure to leave all of us on the edge of our seat”. 

The students have been making adjustments to the script since the summer, and the process is ongoing. According to Peeters, one perk of creating your character is that she can make her character her own “and figure out the relationship with other characters in the show”. In short, she can break free from the restrictions a traditional actor has when receiving a script. Another interesting factor in the play is the traverse stage. Rather than the traditional form of the entire audience facing the stage, they will be split up and sit on either side of the stage. According to Luskin, the stage will allow “you to be fully immersed in the experience. Kind of like watching a runway show”. 

With so many elements of magic, this fantasy tale is sure to leave a mystical mark on its audience. Tune in to find out how it ends!