On February 29th, Marblehead High School’s drama club competed in the Massachusetts Theater Guild Festival at Winthrop High School. They went against seven other high schools, including Rockport High School, Melrose High School, Salem Academy, Medford High School, Salem High School, Winthrop High School, and Lynn Classical High School. For Dramafest, there are many rules that schools must follow to not be disqualified. Putting up the set of the production has to take five minutes or less, and the play has to be under 40 minutes.
There are three judges who watch all of the plays and, at the end of the festival, decide which three schools go through to semi-finals. Margaret Mancusi-Ungaro, Eleanor Small, Will Ricker, and Ian Wanger all received individual awards from the judges. Marblehead High School performed the production of Peter/Wendy, which is a twist of the original Peter Pan story everyone knows today. There are flying people and a sword fight sequence that the cast worked long and hard on. Eventually, the judges came to a consensus on which schools to send to the semi-finals. Winthrop High School and their powerful and artistic production of “Fallen,” as well as Melrose High School and their impressive adaptation of “Lord of the Flies,” made it to semi-finals. The third school that was announced to make it to the semi-finals was Marblehead High School’s Peter/Wendy!
The cast and crew will compete in the semi-finals at North Reading High School on March 14th. This is Marblehead’s third year in a row making it through the preliminary round. They will go against Wayland High School, Georgetown High School, Peabody High School, North Reading High School, and Tyngsboro High School. The entire cast and crew has worked extremely hard on this production and have been working on it since the fall. Good luck at semi-finals!