by Justin Toledo, WVTV Reporter
AURORA – Waubonsie Valley Theatre opened up its 2023-2024 season with the freshmen play, The Many Adventures of Puss in Boots on Thursday night in the school’s auditorium.
“It’s sort of a mixture of the first Puss n Boots and then Shrek and then the most recent Puss in Boots,” said freshman Jordan Enas, who plays the role of Puss in Boots. “So Humpty Dumpty’s in it, Shrek and Donkey are in it.”
“He [Puss in Boots] has a lot of interactions with different fairy tale characters,” said freshman Anoushka Sandeep, who plays the part of Mother Goose, “and then the last scene is really cool because it kind of incorporates the latest movie, The Wishing Star. So it’s about how he became Puss in Boots.”
The play is produced completely by the class of 2027, from acting on the stage, to building of the set, to lights and sound. The play has been a big adjustment for freshman students who are used to a smaller stage and smaller productions, but the learning experience has been a fun one.
“Now we’re on a real stage, which is really cool, and it’s a lot more fast-paced and a lot of independent learning,” said Enas. “Because we only had a month to do this, it was a bit difficult because it was a lot of blocking.”
“The biggest challenge was kind of just always staying on top of things,” said Sandeep, “because in middle school we had two months to prepare for the musical, but then over here we have a month. So it’s kind of just getting used to that. There’s like things you have to work on more and more blocking and there’s a lot more, not more expectations, but you have to focus a lot more.”
“It was a nice introduction sort of to the whole theatre program,” said Enas, “because I do want to do theatre later in the year as well. For Warrior Update, I’m Justin Toledo. A math teacher is using quotes to engage students Makenzi Green has more.