The John Burroughs High School Drama program presents The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] streaming live Friday and Saturday evenings, November 20 and 21. The live stream will be available all weekend long until Sunday evening on the JBHS Drama YouTube page.
Forty-one Burroughs High Drama students perform hundreds of characters, in a 90-minute mash-up covering all of Shakespeare’s plays, with a bit of an irreverent take and some contemporary twists.
“Titus Andronicus is done as a gory cooking show, the histories are presented on a football field and the Real Housewives of Burbank discuss Shakespeare’s romances at their book club,” Drama teacher Guy Myers told fellow teachers at JBHS. “It’s silly and fast-paced and would be a fun way to expose your students to Shakespeare in a deliriously ridiculous way. Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet are featured, naturally, and could be a nutty way to review or to introduce these works to your English classes.”
“The students filmed everything while staying safer at home or in their backyards (and traveling afar using green screens), and I’m proud to say that our JBHS students also did almost all of the editing themselves!” Myers added. “This has been such a learning process for us as we have navigated how to keep comedic timing and energy alive even when you are often in the room filming by yourself.”
“My students have met this year with resilience and enthusiasm. While nothing has gone as planned or as we had hoped, we worked together and adapted and created something very special with our Shakespeare mash-up,” Myers told myBurbank News.
“The creativity and characterizations will make you laugh, and everyone will love seeing our students entertaining us all in this new format.”
“While it has been difficult figuring out how to rehearse and film and edit in isolation, I am so proud of the cast and crew for how hard they have worked, for learning new skills, and for taking the leap with me,” Myers added.
The Drama program at Burroughs has been busy throughout the Fall semester, also debuting a new web series, Flunk’d, which is created, written, filmed and edited by the 2020-21 Play Production class. The series takes place at the fictional John Hughes High School in the 1980s and students have to deal with the ferocious Principal Guyers while navigating the ins and outs of high school cliques. The first two episodes are available to view on JBHS Drama’s IGTV and YouTube.
The official premiere of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) [Revised] is set for 7:00 p.m., Friday, November 20 (barring any technical issues), and the production will stream all weekend long until Sunday night.
While the show is available to watch for free, donations to the JBHS Drama program are encouraged via a $10 ticket purchase link on jbhsdrama.com.
