William Shakespeare’s “Comedy of Errors” will premier at the Moorpark College Performing Arts Center on March 8.
Moorpark College students and staff have been working on the play since the beginning of the semester and hope to draw in audiences to enjoy this light-hearted farce.
“People aren’t going to laugh if you don’t sell the jokes,” said director Suzanne Fagan during their rehearsal.
The show has every intention of making audiences laugh with their feature of two sets of separated-at-birth twins, Antipholus of Syracuse and Antipholus of Ephesus and these men’s servants, Dromio of Syracuse and Dromio of Ephesus. Of course, this calls for potential confusion as fellow townspeople see them apparently act out of character. This production offers a welcome distraction to students looking for a laugh and an opportunity to support their peers in the Theater Department.
Fagan wants to ensure that students put full energy into delivering the humor, and the actors themselves hope that the attendees truly have a good time while watching it.
“We have a lot of fun at rehearsals, and it feels like a family,” said Kathryn Eastland, a 19-year-old Theater Arts major playing the character Adriana. “I like that Suzanne is open to exploring different ways of expressing our character.”
Although the actors, technical staff, and directors are having fun working on play, they admit that they are faced with some unusual challenges.
For instance, the whole aspect of twins and trying to personify their counterparts, who they are not actually related to, proves to be a difficult task itself. Ryan Scot plays Antipholus of Syracuse, and Michael Claridge is his respective twin, Antipholus of Ephesus. Arianna Velasquez plays Dromio of Ephesus with Margot Rowe as Dromio of Syracuse.
“It’s really odd to give and take Ryan’s personality because his character has a much different path than mine,” said Claridge, a 19-year-old film major.
On top of that hurdle, the show staff is taking on another unexplored path for the theater department in the show: puppets. They will be featuring a short segment with paper cutout puppets on an overhead screen projector.
The stage manager for the show, Paola Soliz, a 20-year-old Theater major, said that they dedicated one of their entire four-hour rehearsals to working out the kinks in this part to perfect it for their show opening next week.
Tickets are on sale right now on the Moorpark College website for $12, but there are student discounted ones at $8. “Comedy of Errors” will have showings on March 8, 9, 10, 15, 16 and 17 at 8 p.m. There will be matinee showings at 2 p.m. on March 11 and 18. They will all be at the Moorpark College Performing Arts Center.
