Howe Sound Secondary School’s theatre production class is gearing up to take to the Eagle Eye Theatre stage next month in their adaptation of Don Zolidis’ The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon.
“It incorporates many of the Brothers Grimm stories,” explained Christian Smith, spokesman for the madcap production and Grade 11 student.
There are two narrators who help guide the audience from tale to tale.
“It’s definitely modernized and made into a comedy rather than the original short terrors,” said the production’s costume designer, Tobin Eckstein, who is in Grade 12.
“For example, in the Hansel and Gretel scene, it is made into an ’80s afterschool special type thing.”
Smith said he hopes the audience comes away having laughed and feeling a bit better about life.
“We want them to leave here happy,” said Smith, who worked on set design for the play.
Under the tutelage of teacher Christa Duttchen, the class, which includes students ranging from Grades 10 through 12, has been rehearsing since the beginning of the school year.
Fellow Grade 11 student Jada King-Drake, plays one of the birds in Cinderella and a crab person, a character that helps segue from one fairy tale to the next.
“Because it is a really fast moving play, to break up between the main stories you have all these little side show stories,” she said.
King-Drake, who also does hair for the actors in the show, said compared to last year’s production, The Edelweiss Pirates about a group of youth in Nazi Germany, this year’s production is a much more lighthearted romp.
“If the people who came to see the play last year come to see this one they can see that we are diverse in the plays we do and we don’t just do one type of play,” she said.
“We do many different types of plays and our talent and skills are different.”
The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon runs nightly from March 7 to 11 beginning at 7 p.m. each night at the Eagle Eye Theatre.
