Olathe West Repertory Theater Performs Hamlet

Advanced repertory theater produced their first show of the year

“Hamlet” was performed on Thursday, Oct. 19, running through Saturday by the Olathe West repertory theater class, the most advanced theater class available for students. “Hamlet”, written over 400 years ago, is being brought to the stage.

This production is about the ghost of Hamlet’s father telling Hamlet to avenge his murder by killing his uncle, the new king. In this show, a plethora of emotions are displayed by the main character, shifting from one emotion to the next. Senior Jordan Cabuay stars in this production, taking on the role of Hamlet.

“I got interested in acting last year when I did ‘Addams Family’ the musical and ever since, I’ve been excited,” Cabuay said. “I’ve just liked acting and I really liked ‘Hamlet’ and Shakespeare so I wanted to try it out.”

For his role, Cabuay was tasked to memorize 217 lines, along with choreography. Still, Hamlet is a once in a lifetime role, and Cabuay has taken that challenge head on.

“He goes from one emotion to the other,” Cabuay said. “I mean, I can kind of connect with his friendship status and just the relationships he has with other people, and his trustworthiness of others also.”

Theater teacher Alisha Morris has been guiding her students through the show process to make the production as successful as possible.

“We rehearse during the class time, during sixth hour, and during that time we will have actor rehearsals on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, but on Thursdays we have tech days where we…work on the tech elements,” Morris said. “The last two weeks of the show... kids will have to come after school and do rehearsals until 7 or 9 p.m. depending on the day.”

This show could not come together without the help and support of the crew members. Some positions in the crew are props crew, costume crew, set designers and more. All of these teams have to have good communication and work together to bring the show together. Junior Natalia Smith works on prop crew and is ready for the show.

“We are finishing up stuff this week so we’re finishing the last finishing touches on painting,” Smith said. “Most of the crews are done. Actors should most definitely be memorized by this point.”

Designing the sets exclusive to crew members. Cabuay has recalled one of his favorite memories from producing the show as designing the set all in one day.

“I’m Hamlet, but then also the scenic designer for the show and me and my scenic mentor, Emily Heflin, came up with the entire set in one day and I really like how it turned out,” Cabuay said.

Excitement flurried through all members of Repertory Theater that have been a part of the show as they experienced their curtain call.

“I really like Hamlet,” Smith said. “I think it’s funny. It’s a little bit hard to understand sometimes... but I would not change it.”