Belleville Township High School East - Yearbook (Belleville, IL)

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Captain Shotover (Ken Nesbit) instructs Nurse Guinness (Keely Hummert) on how to serve tea to the guests. Captain Shotover (Ken Nesbit) ponders the question of youth. Lifestyles 17

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it aii on At: f HOUSE Captain Shotover (Ken Nesbit) and Ellie Dunn (Marcy Welter) announce their surprise mar¬ riage to Mazzini Dunn (J.T. Cochran) and Lady Utterword (Lina Iturrian). Capturing the audience’s apathetic feelings and exploiting them to their limits was George Bernard Shaw’s master plan for this year’s fall play. The play possessed many intriguing qualities and a twisting plot that bewildered the theatre-goers. Mr. Brad Schmidt directed this year’s presentation, entitled Heartbreak House.” As the title implies, each character ex¬ perienced some type of heartbreak while staying at this house. The East Theatre Company presented the play Nov. 17, 18. and 19 in the East Performance Center. According to Mr. Schmidt, Shaw intended the play to be a satire about the upper class people living in Sussex, England, during World War I. Shaw expressed bitterness towards these people because they appeared to be concerned only with themselves and not with W.W.I. As the play begins, Shaw brings all of his characters togeth¬ er in the house of Captain Shotover, a retired seaman played by Ken Nesbit. Throughout the play, the characters are in¬ volved in complex love relationships from which they learn valuable lessons. Ken, a senior, starred in his eighth play at Belleville East. Ken claimed. Playing the role of Captain Shotover wasn’t one of the easiest jobs. The captain, a disillusioned 88 year old man, is a retired sea captain who runs his household like a ship. Ken commented on the theme of the play, stating, Society has to change if it wants to survive. Throughout the play, a young girl named Ellie Dunn, played by Marcy Welter, encounters several love relationships. Marcy, a sophomore, describes her character as a young, naive girl who learns the ways of Heartbreak House’,’’ which is also the ways of life. Heartbreak House” is Mr. Schmidt’s third consecutive fall play that he has directed at East. After working with the cast members after school and on Saturday mornings, Mr. Schmidt did not hesitate to say that Heartbreak House” was a tough play” that required a lot of time and hard work for all those involved. J

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Every year East theatre holds Freshman-Sophomore One Act Plays. The purpose of these short one acts is to give the underclassmen a chance to participate and broaden their horizons in the drama area. This year’s productions were ”Moby Dick” directed by Mr. Brad Schmidt, and ’Caesar and Cleopatra” which Ms. Dawn Mosley directed. Both of these one acts were portrayed as comical spoofs. Some of the lead cast members in ' Moby Dick” were Wade Fields, who played Captain Ahab, Christi Morfick as ishameal. and Joy Ducree as OueeOueg. Some leads in ’’Caesar and Cleopatra” were Ron Carter as Caesar, and Cameron Miller as Cleopatra. Mr. Cohlmeyer was the technical director backstage. Some upperclassmen were allowed to help out as backstage crew. Throughout the years it has seemed that this chance to gain on-stage acting experience has benefited many freshmen and sophomores and has allowed them to go on to do bigger and better theatre productions. Cleopatra (Cameron Miller) is about to be bitten by her asp. The technical crew was an important part in making the One-Acts a success. Lifestyles