Last month, the Moorpark College Theater Arts Department opened its production of William Shakespeare’s play “Twelfth Night,” at the Performing Arts Center on March 13, 2025.

“Twelfth Night” is a comedic play that follows a woman named Viola who disguises herself as a man named Cesario after being shipwrecked and separated from her twin brother, Sebastian. The play explores themes like mistaken identity, love, ambition and revenge all while being set in the roaring 1920s-themed environment. The characters engage in fistfights, miscommunications and arguments, along with catchy singing and dancing.

Directed by John Loprieno, the production performance is part of the THA M10 A-D class students can enroll in to start performing. Loprieno discussed the process of choosing this spring’s play and cast.

“Myself, Suzanne Fagan, Haleh Risdana and Brian Koehler, we like to look at a two-year series of plays that we can offer students, various styles, genres, historical periods, to give somebody assuming they’re going to be here for two years or more, a variety of dramatic material to work on.” Loprieno explained. “For this audition, I casted people with lots of experience, medium experience and no experience.

Loprieno shared that since the production is set in the 1920s, and they tried aimed to utilize music from the 20s to help set the theme.

Izellah Sanchez, a Theatre Arts major at Moorpark College who plays the role of Viola, shared how this was her second Shakespearean play, having starred in “The Tempest” in 2023 as the character Miranda. She explained her experience diving into her role as Viola for “Twelfth Night.”

“Since it’s a comedy, it’s supposed to be really fun. I think I’ve been trying to lean into the silliness of it, of like, you know, [Viola is] a girl trying pretending to be a guy, you know, she doesn’t know what that’s like, so she’s gonna make mistakes, and she’s gonna look funny when she’s out there,” Sanchez explained. “She’s gonna maybe talk a little funny too, because she only knows what she thinks boys are like. She doesn’t know what it’s like being a boy, so I think just playing with that. Just knowing, like, I’m a girl, I’ve never been a boy, so that’s like, easy to as a girl pretending to be a boy. I can do that.”

The students excitedly began auditioning and rehearsing in December 2024, although two weeks of rehearsals were cut due to wildfires and rainy weather. Sanchez explained that the cast put great effort into making up for that lost time and prepping to make the show as seamless as possible. She shared that throughout rehearsals and blocking for the show, the actors have been able to have fun.

“But now that we’ve been off book, and we know mostly our blocking, it’s been a lot more fun being able to make more choices in terms of how we’re interacting with each other, how we’re reacting with each other, even just like little funny bits that we can do when we’re on stage and help find some of that too,” Sanchez shared.

Alice Lowery, a communications major and first-year student at Moorpark College, also has experience being part of a Shakespearean play, playing Helena in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Agoura High School. As a big fan of Shakespeare, she expressed her excitement playing the Countess Olivia for “Twelfth Night.”

“I’ve always been a big Shakespeare fan, so getting to play [Olivia] is incredible,” Lowery said. “She’s very independent, she’s very stubborn, she’s very strong. I love the way that her grief shows with her character, because, I don’t know, she’s very classy, she’s very easy to love.”

William Shakespeare’s work from centuries ago still remains relatable to people now as themes of identity, love, friendship and loss are explored in his work.

“I hope the audience sees that Shakespeare is still so relevant, and even though it may be a certain show has been done thousands and thousands of times,” Lowery shared. “When someone plays a Shakespeare character, no one will ever play them the exact same way again. Shakespeare leaves so much up to the actor and up to the director. There are endless ways in different settings you can put a show in and it’ll still be great.”

Learning how to perform in the Shakespearean language and memorizing every word of the play is a big task, but the cast rose to the challenge. With the help of Sydney Sims, students were able to learn the Shakespearean language.

Breaden Woolley, a Film, Television & Media Arts major at Moorpark College who plays Orsino, talked about how his character is love struck and very hyper-fixated on his love for Olivia. Woolley also shared his challenge in playing a Shakespearean play.

“Being in Shakespeare, it’s harder to find a presence than it is to act. If that makes any form of sense, it’s harder to find what’s natural, because you have to find a way to make your words flow with your emotions,” Woolley said. “But when you’re talking from experience, it’s a lot harder to kind of do that. But when it comes to understanding the lines, it’s a lot easier than what I was anticipating.”

Additionally, students were speaking without a microphone which challenged them to speak with diction and clarity to deliver lines to the audience.

Dash Jeffords, a second-year Theatre Arts major at Moorpark College who plays the character Malvolio, explained that performing Shakespeare is different than other shows he has acted in. Jeffords explained that the end goal of the actors is to help the audience understand the dialogue.

“The whole point of doing Shakespeare is to try and make it make sense for the audience,” Jeffords explained. “So, in the line delivery, and where you put inflection in the line, because if you just read it straight, it’s going to sound like gibberish to the average person. So, it’s been really, really cool, and has helped me grow as an actor completely.”

Jeffords hopes for the audience to have a fun and laughter-filled experience while watching the comedic play “Twelfth Night.”

Alex Franco, a third-year Theatre Arts major at Moorpark College who plays Sebastian, added that he received great advice from Loprieno in learning his lines and researching the role, and that backstory played a key role in the production of the show.

“There’s a step in between, because John made a really good point. Like, you can say the lines, but then you’re on autopilot, and you’re saying it, but everyone can tell you don’t mean it, because you don’t know what you’re saying,” Franco explained. “So, what was great working with Sydney was like, going over all of our lines and then talk about all the afflictions, like, ‘Why is he saying this? Why is he saying this specific word compared to other ones?’ And people saying this word, ‘you should get more meaning behind that,’ and things like that.”

The “Twelfth Night” production ran through March 23 at Moorpark College. To learn more about the Moorpark College Theatre Arts department, click here.