The Stallion Theatre Company presented their first production of the 2017-2018 school year: The Love of Three Oranges by Hillary DePiano.  With a cast of 26 Stallions, this comedy took the stage to deliver many laughs and smiles to the audience.

One of the leads of the play, Edward Kemp, played the role of a bratty prince that is cured from a “severe” illness but becomes desperately and madly in love with three gigantic oranges. “It’s ridiculous…that’s really the best word I can describe it,” said Kemp.

Kemp noted how challenging it was to embody the arrogance of his character while still being comedic. “I had to find an inner cockiness and an obsessive desire for fruit,” said Kemp.

This was Kemp’s first major role in a production at SJHHS. “The rehearsals were really fun because you get to both learn how to portray your character and also create chemistry with the other actors on stage,” said Kemp. “Through this production, I made a lot of new friendships and got closer to a lot of people.”

Because of the  goofy storyline, the audience was really involved in the fun and even gave the actors a standing ovation. “The audience blew me away by how incredibly cheerful and happy they were,” said Kemp.  Having an encouraging audience is sometimes just what the actors need; midway through one of the performances, Kemp got a migraine but was able to carry on without missing a beat with the cheering audience on his side.

Director, Cambria Beilstein, was proud of the cast for being such a fun group to work with during the 8 weeks they worked on the show.  “It was a really cohesive environment, and the students were able to work really hard while also laughing at how stupid the plot was,” said Beilstein.  

Beilstein credits Assistant Director Jacqueline Brooks for helping make the show come to life and taking the lead in her absence.  This was Brooks’s first time being Assistant Director as well as Set Designer.

Brooks was actively involved with the audition process, rehearsals, as well as coaching the actors with suggestions on how to improve their skills. “I really learned how to stay on top of things and how important the director notes are for the actors,” said Brooks.

Being a set design rookie, she enjoyed having the opportunity to apply her artistic visions for the scene onto the sets. “I wanted to give it a Renaissance feeling, because the Renaissance is the age of exploration and discovery, our two words of inspiration for the show,” said Brooks.

She, along with the rest of the Theatrical Production class, spent many long, laborious weekends working on the set creating a palace, a forest, and 4 other scenes for the production.  They had tech builds that lasted  8 hours on three different weekends and spent even more time  during the week, building and creating their sets.

As an actor herself, Brooks has been apart of many productions at SJHHS. She was really grateful for the opportunity to be a leader behind the scenes on this show but prefers being on the stage herself.  She will be performing in the next Stallion Theatre Company production, The Women of Lockerbie in December.