By EVA HANEGRAAFF
NORTH READING — As the seasons change, so does North Reading High School’s drama club, Masquers, transitioning from their fall musical to their winter one-act play. This year, for a little under a month, starting only Feb. 3, Masquers has been working on their winter show, “Cyrano de Bergerac,” a story of a man with a large nose who finds himself in a love triangle with Roxanne, the woman he adores, and the handsome Christian, with whom Cyrano is competing for Roxanne’s affection.
Allison Kane, the Masquers’ director, describes the show in saying, “it’s also a story about self perception and our place in the world, so I think it’s a bigger story than just the love triangle, which is what everybody talks about, which is great, but it’s also about personal identity and how we fit into the world and that’s how the modern adaptation allows us to connect to it.”
A major aspect of this story that comes into play is the idea of outward appearance. Cyrano has a defining characteristic of a large nose that is juxtaposed to the objective beauty of Christian. Elliana Rainey, Masquers’ underclassman representative, describes the character of Cyrano in saying, “one of his big central struggles is how to deal with being in love as he knows he doesn’t fit into society, like others do.” The idea of outward and inward beauty further comes into play through Masquers’ use of set design. The “eco-brutalist” set pieces make for an interesting dichotomy that serves as a symbol for the overall storyline, demonstrating that beauty is beyond the surface, and can be found in the most unexpected of places.
The play is originally from the 1800s and set in 1640, however Masquers is putting on a modern adaptation with the same story, recently performed by James McAvoy. The whole play is performed in a slam poetry style, incorporating rhymes throughout. Masquers secretary and the actor playing the title role of Cyrano, Mikey Manupelli, describes, “it’s kind of heavy on your heart and it’s pretty deep. We have loud moments and quiet moments and soft moments, but a lot of it is aggressive and upbeat for the soft moments to be more slow and quiet.”
Masquers is also putting their own personality into the show. Along with ending the show in a different place than was originally written, Masquers is also using their physicality to tell the story as well. They made the bold decision not to use any props, real costumes, or prosthetics. Manupelli says, “everything is symbolic and represents something rather than having props, which kind of makes it a little bit easier when it comes to organizing, but at the same time, of course, it’s harder.”
The winter one act is different from the fall musical in many ways. Besides the lack of singing, the most notable is the time constraint. Manupelli explains, “The entire play has to be in 40 minutes and it’s usually four or five acts and we had to cut that down, so we had to get the entire point of the story into just that short period of time, which takes some true thought.”
From a more big picture perspective, Sofia Naulivou, Masquers’ president and sound designer explains, “if you go over that 40 minutes, you’re disqualified. You can still win awards but you can’t place and move on to the next round.”
Along with timing, the stage crew faces a secondary struggle that comes in the form of the transportability of the set.
“With our musical, we’re able to build our set and have it be permanently on the stage, but for this production, we had to design and build our set in a way that allows it to be broken down and fit into a truck,” explains Matt Capalbo, Masquers’ upperclassman representative and the stage manager of this production.
Capalbo goes on to explain how Masquers goes about this seemingly impossible challenge. “The whole set comes together like a puzzle.”
While it is a competition, the METG One Act is scored in an interesting way. Naulivou explains, “So the judges look at all sides of the show, so they’ll look at lights, they’ll look at sound, they’ll look at sets, they’ll look at acting.” There are two types of awards. There are set awards and special awards that can differ from show to show and apply to especially notable parts of a show that do not fit into a set category.
Naulivou goes on to explain, “So they’re kind of just picking apart every little thing in the show.” While at the preliminary level, any school can win any number of awards, at the state level it is restricted to only three awards per school.
Another interesting part of judging in these competitions comes in the form of the required unanimity of the decision. “So there’s three to five judges at each site and that all judges must come to a consensus,” Kane explains. To move past the preliminary rounds, Naulivou said, “they don’t give placements, they just say, ‘these four schools are moving on to the next round, these two are moving on.’”
Last year, with their one act play “Much Ado About Nothing,” Masquers made it to the state competition, being one of the top 14 schools in Massachusetts. When describing what contributed to their success, Vasiliki Kouiroukidis, Masquers’ historian, said, “We all just worked like a well oiled machine, and I think, with the hard work and teamwork and just the fun and positive attitudes that we had throughout, is what helps us work really well.”
While Masquers feels excited to compete and hopefully win with their one act this year, winning is not the only thing about competitions that they are looking forward to. Matt Mulcahy, Masquers vice president, explains, “it’s really fun to make friends there and to just have a good time along with the competition aspect.”
On Saturday, March 1, Masquers competed in the preliminary round of their competition in Saugus, winning numerous awards. They are moving on to the Semifinal Round, which they are also hosting at NRHS on Saturday, March 15. Masquers will perform at 10:30 a.m. and encourage all to attend and cheer them on!
Tickets for the dress rehearsal on Thursday, March 13 at 7 p.m. are $5 cash at the door.
Tickets for the Semifinal Round on Saturday, March 15 are $15 cash at the door, which includes admittance to up to six shows scheduled throughout the day.
Preliminary round awards
At the preliminary round, the following awards were won by the Masquers: Daniela Voisinet won for her lighting design. Adriana Gonzales and Stevie Schomp won for Dramaturgy. Adriana Gonzales, Vasiliki Kourioukidis and Elliana Rainey won for Costume Design. Matt Capalbo won the overall stage manager’s award for the entire festival, and performers Mikey Manupelli, Anthony Spina and Alivia Rowe all took home individual best acting awards.
NRHS senior Eva Hanegraaff is a student intern at the Transcript for the 2024-25 school year. She wants to use her internship to learn about the field of journalism and bring in a high school voice to the Transcript. Contact her at evahanegraaff@gmail.com with any article ideas or tips.