The Little Prince, the world renowned novella by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, came to life in the form of the ETHS theater department’s Frosh-Soph winter play from Thursday, Feb. 14 to Saturday, Feb. 17. The Little Prince is a captivating tale addressing human nature and life, and makes an excellent candidate for the Frosh Soph play due to the manner in which it discusses thought provoking themes of love, loss, and loneliness while still being a very approachable story to all audiences. “It’s not like Shakespeare where you have to take a whole language class to understand it,” said junior and assistant producer Jay Gurrala.
Producing the winter play tends to pose a yearly challenge to the theater department, given that after December auditions, the cast is left with only a couple months to rehearse and prepare for quickly approaching performance dates in mid February. This condensed timeline differs greatly from the fall play, which could serve to atone younger actors to a more relaxed process given that the fall play has essentially more time granted to it in every step of production.
Less than two full months is a relatively small amount of time to produce a show, and multiple missed school days to snow and cold conditions does nothing to ease the dilemma. With such a daunting task at hand and so little time, actors are expected to have their lines memorized prior to their return from winter break so that rehearsals can begin as soon as students are back in the building following the turn of the new year. Rehearsals begin with actors running through parts, reciting lines, and practicing scenes, but in the final weeks leading up to the show, the cast reaches the ever important milestone of Tech week. During Tech week, the crew integrates lights, sounds, sets, and props into the play, giving it the quality that is standard of ETHS theater department plays.
Despite the difficulties of various time constraints, Frosh Soph actors are able to create a well put together play, and learn a lot about theater in the process. “I see the Frosh Soph play as a stepping stone to get from a very inexperienced level of theater to a more higher experienced level of theater, such as the whole school play” offered Jay, who shared an optimistic outlook on the play. The Little Prince has undoubtedly required a lot of work from the cast and production team, and ETHS students and parents alike were able to enjoy the show in the little theater throughout the latter half of the week of Feb. 12.
