At Pentucket, the theater program typically does three shows a year. The first is the high school play. Grades 9-12 are allowed to participate in a smaller show with no music in our black box theater. The second is the middle school musical, where 7th and 8th graders put on a junior show (a cut-down version of a musical that typically runs for about an hour). Finally, comes the spring musical, where any student attending the school can partake in the biggest show of the year in the auditorium. Last year, our spring musical was set to be Mary Poppins, quite possibly the largest endeavor our theater program has taken on in a long time. However, with the auditorium out of commission due to February’s fire, the future of the theater program seemed uncertain. If the auditorium were to be fixed by the beginning of the 2025-2026 school year, we could roll right into Mary Poppins, pushing the fall play to a later date. However, with numerous delays on its reconstruction, Mrs. Snow, the theater program’s director, had to pivot to planning all of this year’s shows around the smaller space that the black box provides. In addition to this, a show was needed that could be put together fast.

Enter William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. With no rights or legal issues to speak of, a public-domain show like Macbeth can be cut down or stretched to be put on in any form, at any length, with every choice being the director’s. Therefore, we could put on a 75-minute cut of the normally 2 and a half hour long show with no issue. Adding on a spooky Halloween weekend date for the performances about bloodthirsty kings, spirits, and prophetic witches, Macbeth was set to be a slam dunk for our theater department.

Auditions for the play were held on the second day of school. Each person auditioning had to choose a monologue from a (non-Macbeth) dramatic Shakespeare play to read one minute of. While normally, everyone sits in the hallway anxiously during auditions, the process for this show felt more laid-back. Each audition took about 2-3 minutes, and most people just walked in and walked out, feeling good about their chances. Additionally, there were no callbacks or secondary auditions, meaning the cast list was put out on the same night that everyone auditioned. That night, of course, was, is, and always will be incredibly anxiety-inducing. I remember refreshing the Google Classroom page every 2 minutes, waiting for the announcement to be posted. Funnily enough, it was when I finally stopped checking for it that I received at least fifteen text messages that the list had been posted. But, with everyone given their roles, we had 57 days until showtime, and a lot to do.

Most rehearsal processes at Pentucket have a set structure. On Sunday, everyone checks Google Classroom to see who’s called what days. Then, on a day when you’re called, you show up at 2:15, and you start at the beginning of the show. Typically, Mrs. Snow blocks scenes in chronological order, meaning that the first two to three weeks of rehearsals are just running 1-3 scenes for an hour until everyone knows where they are supposed to be and what they are supposed to be doing. Once that’s done, most rehearsals are just run-throughs, adding more and more aspects like props, costumes, and lighting until the show is finished. For this particular show, rehearsals started on September 8th, and blocking was done by the beginning of October. Not every rehearsal is work-focused, however. Sometimes actors will walk into the black box, only to be met with a lesson on stage combat, with fake punches, sword slashes, and strangling! Other times, what is meant to be a character-building day for two actors turns into an hour-long conversation between them and the director where nothing really gets done. However, with the speed and quality we usually learn our blocking, rehearsals like these can take place with little issue.

Of course, understanding the scenes, especially with Shakespeare plays, is only half of the battle. The real trouble comes in with memorizing the lines. Shakespeare is known for being difficult to read and understand, so it should not be a surprise that memorizing it is a tough battle. Everybody has their own strategy. Some members of our cast use specialized Quizlets to learn the line that comes before theirs and what they say afterward. Others (such as me) run scenes in the mirror until they can say every line from memory. Some others can learn just by running their scenes in rehearsals often enough so that they learn the lines naturally. One actor, Jacob Giordano (Macduff), has a more intricate three-step process for learning lines. The method goes as follows: “1. Read all the lines in the scene. 2. Try and recite the lines. If you mess one up, you reread the line you forgot and start from the first line again. 3. If you can say every line correctly without messing up 4 times across two different days, then you’ve memorized it.” Learning about all the different ways to memorize lines, especially for a tough show like this can be very interesting.

But theater isn’t just about the words and the drama. A lot goes on behind the scenes to make the show look, sound, and feel more immersive. The first process came with the building of the show’s set. Mr. Berube, Pentucket’s tech director, designed the two-level set, and it was built by our wonderful crew. A few rehearsals were spent creating thick vines out of black paper and plastic leaves, which, over the course of many lunch periods, were hung in the rafters of the theater. Hailey Bruno (Lady Macbeth) also designed a network of vines to be run over the white panels of the set for some additional atmosphere. Other elements of the show’s tech include lighting designed by Fiona Moore (also playing Third Witch), and sound designed by me, along with my (more musically talented) friends Juan Rosario and Declan Holt. Together, by creating sound effects and lighting, we were able to create an even better experience for the audience.

Now that the show is over, it seems an apt time to reflect on the rehearsal process. While it has been short, I feel as if I’ve grown closer to a lot of my castmates over the past 7 weeks, and I believe that Macbeth was one of our best performances to date. I hope that readers can learn something about the work that goes into a show like this, such that when they watch a Pentucket Production, they can understand how we do what we do for them.