Grey Collins, Sophomore
As the new year kicks off, so is the preparation for a play called “Pirates and Nothing Else.” The play closely follows the adventures of the crew of a pirate ship as they try to save one of their crewmates from an angry sea witch.
The play is the brainchild of MHS students Brady Weed and Luke Menslage, who have spent the last 10 months writing it (more than enough time to find buried treasure). Brady and Luke, who will be directing the play, recently cast Gwyn Anderson and Izzy Scogland as the main characters.
“The play should hopefully be performed in the beginning of March, and it will go up at Dramafest at the same time,” said Brady about the production. Dramafest is a competition between different high school drama programs. Brady also talked about their first steps in creating the play.
“Luke and I started writing the show around last March because we got covid at the same time. We would just call each other every night. I brought up the idea of a show about pirates, and we started writing almost on a whim. We finished a draft of the script in the summer and recently finished a final draft.”
Brady, a junior who has been involved with both public school and North Shore Children’s Theater productions for years, spoke about what the audience will take away from the play.
“I think that people will really like it. The read through went really well, and Luke and I think that the full staging will get people really feeling the emotion.” He also thought that the comedy was an important aspect of the production.
“At the very end, I hope the audience will laugh. We weaved comedy into the wider message of the play, and the wider meaning is important to understand,” said Brady, who added that it was a very personal project to him. “I like to think that every character has a little bit of me in them… It all comes from Luke and me, so to an extent we are all the characters.”
Luke, who has thirteen years of experience acting in public school and North Shore Children’s Theater productions, has high expectations about the upcoming show, and he hopes that the audience leaves with more than just another pirate story.
“I’m pretty optimistic. I’m really looking forward to it, and I think it will turn out great and be a lot of fun,” said Luke. “Hopefully, the audience comes out of the show knowing that bad things in life happen, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that life is bad. To quote the show, ‘We all die, but we live before we die.’”
I also talked with Luke about what inspired him to create this play: “We were inspired a lot by the show “Into the Woods”… but, more importantly, inspired by our friends; a lot of characters are directly inspired by people we are close with,” said Luke. “When I was a kid I was obsessed with pirates so that definitely inspired the whole pirate theme of the show.”
As March draws nearer, the MHS community waits with anticipation to see if the play really is just about pirates and nothing else. However, with the time, talent, and effort of the creators, it seems the audience won’t have to dig too deep to find the buried treasure.