Last Wednesday evening, the intermediate theatre class presented a variety of scenes adapted from the works of Shakespeare at the Carlsbad Cultural Arts Center.

The Theatre II students are in the process of preparing the scenes for the Shakespeare Festival later this month. One of the scenes was a parody of the TV show “The Bachelor,” starring Romeo as the unattached gentleman and four Shakespearean ladies as the contestants, written and directed by freshman Belle Flanegan.

“[The writing and directing process] was fun, but also challenging … we took four shows and four characters and condensed all of them and assigned certain people to certain characters,” Flanegan said.

Another scene was the famous Ophelia monologue from Hamlet, but with a twist. Freshman Tyler Jones performed the piece entirely in American sign language, while tossing flowers on the stage as Ophelia does in the play.

“I’ve always wanted to do Ophelia’s monologue and [the showcase] gave me the chance … I thought it would be cool to do it [in ASL] to give myself a challenge,” Jones said.

Sophomore Skylar Johnson portrayed the matchmaking Don Pedro in a montage of scenes from the play, Much Ado About Nothing. She has been in the cast of several productions this year and has a passion for acting.

“Theatre is something where I can learn more than I can with art, since I’ve been doing art so long throughout my life … I think it’s a way of expression,” Johnson said.

Theatre teacher Ms. Porter is very proud of the class’s growth over the course of the year.

“[The Theatre II class] has done all different types of theatre … It operated like an advanced class rather than an intermediate class this year and it was really special,” Ms. Porter said.