The theatre program at Mount Michael has had a long history of putting on phenomenal performances. One recent tradition hosted during the fall semester is a One Act, a short play that tells a story in only one condensed act. This year’s performance, “Shakespeare’s Dead Dudes,” was an act to remember.
The play consists of six Shakespearean characters: Hamlet, Caesar, Othello, Romeo, Richard, and Macbeth, along with the Director. In the act, the characters tell their woes and tragedies, as all the characters interact immediately after their deaths and waiting to be revived for their plays. The cast interacts with each other and the audience in an absurd and often satirical manner, making fun of the overly serious tendencies of Shakespearean literature and theatre.
“I was a bit worried at the start of this year, as we had only two people at the first tryout, but after some recruiting, and a couple of weeks of convincing, we cobbled together a full cast,” Rylan Pearson ‘27 said.
Pearson’s passion for theatre is what pushed the cast to perfection, meeting up every night after the boarders’ study hall. This year the two veterans of the program, Pearson and Liam Kicken ‘26 both revived the program as two very dramatic characters, playing Romeo and Macbeth, respectively.
The play also recruited many new members like freshman Arlo Chubbuck as Hamlet, and junior John Kelly as Julius Caesar. The play was particularly a strange but welcome experience for these new members as they had zero experience at Mount Michael or any high school.
Chubbuck expressed his excitement for the foreign environment, stating, “At first, I had no clue what I was doing, but we eventually got the ball rolling, and it felt like a real performance.” But looking past the inexperience of most of the team, they pushed forward and had a phenomenal opening night with jokes in the play about things like the election and the whooping cough outbreak landing very well with the audience. “It was the best opening night I’ve ever had,” Pearson said after the Thursday night performance. “A lot of the jokes landed very well, and the rap went great.”
Another part of the play that especially entertained the audience was the scene where Romeo and Caesar invite a girl in the audience to the stage, whom Romeo also falls in love with. For all four show nights the girls selected thought it was hilarious.
Leah Kinnley ‘26 from Mercy Catholic, who was brought up to the stage Sunday, said, “I was super confused and didn’t want to mess up the play and it was goofy because I just got to whisper random things to Caesar.” Kinnley also later talked about how she had never experienced that level fun or interactivity from the many other plays she has attended. Many of the other girls that were selected also found it funny, with Marian sophomore Moira Harr even joining the cast photo after being called up to the stage Thursday night.
The audience was full and lively every night, and with the interactive clap of the rapping, and Macbeth’s entrance from behind the audience, many in the audience were constantly on edge for the wild and unpredictable plot.
Patrick Killeen ‘27 said “it was like a constant stream of jokes and especially when Macbeth suddenly appeared behind me I could not stop laughing.”
The audience was indeed hit with joke after joke as the absurdist piece landed an even more absurd cast, like when Laeth Sykora ‘28 did the famous “They don’t love you like I love you” dance during the rap. The improvised jokes like the dap up Romeo and Hamlet share after discovering they both died to poison, or even the joke Hamlet makes of calling Romeo ‘Tabasco’ or ‘Alaska’ all fit in perfectly to the strange and wild plot of the play.
Following the phenomenal performances of this fall play, and the superior performance at districts, the program prepares for the spring play which will be held at an equally high standard. As Pearson said, “I do not think that any factor of the One Act could have been changed to make it any better, it is just fantastic.”
