The first weekend of May, the Danvers Performing Arts program hosted the second annual Performing Arts Weekend at DHS.
On Friday, May 2nd, DHS ACTS put on an original play and musical revue, written by Mr. Michael Barry and Mr. Alex Grover, called The Lady Epilogue: A Musical Revue of Shakespeare’s Women. While the dialogue in the play was written by Mr. Barry, he also pulled monologues from many of Shakespeare’s famous female characters and wrote them into the story. Mr. Grover picked out songs from a variety of musicals to match each monologue, from shows such as Wicked, Next to Normal, Beauty and The Beast, Dear Evan Hansen, Les Miserables and more.
The revue was an acknowledgement of the fact that Shakespeare didn’t start writing smart and independent women into his plays until much later in his career. The show started off with the character of Shakespeare writing, into his plays, women such as Helena from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hermione from The Winter’s Tale, Ophelia from Hamlet, and more. These women were reduced to mere plot points in their stories, and the play points out that Shakespeare didn’t seem to give them a second thought. Later in the play, Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway, gives him some advice, and he finally starts writing strong and capable women such as Kate from The Taming of the Shrew and Rosalind from As You Like It.
Saturday night, Danvers Performing Arts hosted a dessert gala for families featuring many small ensembles as entertainment, including the DHS singing group Vocal Alliance who had just returned from their trip to the NAfME Eastern Division Conference in Connecticut.
After the gala, Pops Night commenced. This concert was a celebration of pop music, music from cinema and musical theater. Both DHS a cappella groups, Skywave and Falconize, performed on this night, along with the DHS rock band Blueblood, a percussion ensemble, the jazz band, the concert chorus, and the concert band. As this was the last concert of the year with the graduating seniors, it was bittersweet, but still a fun performance.
The students of the performing arts are looking forward to their last performance of the year, Solo and Small Ensembles Night, on June 10th.
