Review of Peekskill High School Drama Company’s “Storyville”

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A scene from the play.

During every fall season, the Peekskill High School Drama Company performs a play for the community. This year the drama company performed “Storyville” which was dedicated to the late Mrs. Cynthia Reynolds. This short play involved an amalgamation of different fairy tales. Some of them you may know like “The Gingerbread Boy” story which starred Malik Fisher as the Gingerbread Boy. 

Even Though the play’s main audience was children, everyone in the crowd was laughing and enjoying themselves through the entire performance. There were audience members above the age of 50 who were as mesmerized as the 5 year olds. I was so captivated by the play that I didn’t realize how quickly the time went by. Since it was a 45 minute play I was definitely begging for more. The interactions between the cast and the audience was also very entertaining. The talent of the 13 member cast really shown through in the performance and the acting diversity was mind blowing. Some of the actors’ skills were so surprising because you wouldn’t expect these students who you pass by in the hallway to be so good. 

I had the opportunity to interview some of the cast and crew members to get insight into how they were able to pull off such an amazing performance. Some members of the cast believed that being in a play made for kids gave them more freedom to add to their character. By doing that I believed it built a genuine feeling among the cast. They also went off script many times to make jokes which the audience loved.

Due to the carefree acting style it didn’t take long for the cast to learn their lines. “It only took me a week to learn all my lines,” says Zaire Davis. Which wasn’t surprising at all because he really looked natural on the stage when he was playing one of his 3 characters, the Lion King, and did the role with all of his heart and energy. Zaire wasn’t the only one with many different roles, as Kayla Wilson, Hannah Czerwinski, Ariana Okoth, and Angeline Carlos-Caceres all had 4 roles each. 

The stage crew peeking out from behind the curtain.

 

Let’s not forget about the stage crew who put it all together by painting the set and taking care of all the costumes that the cast had to quickly change into. One stage assistant, Nicole Uyaguari, said “It took us weeks and we spent hours to build the set” which reflected on the stage because the backdrops added so much to the play to get you immersed.