nothin Swordplay Breaks Out At Co-Op High | New Haven Independent

Swordplay Breaks Out At Co-Op High

Allan Appel Photo

Co-Op students Arinze O’Kwuosah and Donijah Collier rehearse the run up to a sword fight.

Put your point down and then bring it straight up,” Jim Andreassi said. He’s a beautiful man. I don’t want to lose any of that.”

Andreassi of the Elm Shakespeare Company offered that bit of sage advice on rapier safety along with many others about being a theater professional. He was rehearsing Cooperative Arts & Humanities high school actors in the run-up to the school’s big fall performance, a boisterous and funny Twelfth Night, Or, What You Will.

Shakespeare’s great gender-bending comedy, complete with sword play, guitar ditties, and mistaken identities galore, will hit the boards at the Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School on Friday and Saturday.

It’s the first time that the school’s extensive Co-Op After School (CAS) program has invited a professional theater company to work with the budding young actors, lighting designers, stage managers, and set builders. It came about in part because Charles McAfee, a theater teacher at the high school, has recently become the point person for Elm Shakespeare Company’s education programs. McAfee is also Elm’s technical director and the guy behind the set design.

Director Jim Andreassi offers sword play safety tips.

If you look carefully, you can see a set of day-glow steps that were used in this summer’s production of Pericles. The kids will be wearing costumes from the Elm Shakespeare Company’s treasure trove, along with period outfits courtesy of other theater companies in the area.

Access to a cool set and costumes, however, is only a small part of the enhanced experience for the kids, who have long put on redoubtable performances, such as last year’s The Importance of Being Earnest, for their annual spring musical and fall play.

With Jim it’s about the show,” said Joey Mulvey (pictured), a senior who plays the clown Feste and sings Elizabethan tunes in the play. We need to clear our heads and get down to work, and not talk about what happened in class. It’s more professional.”

The relationship to Andreassi has been especially helpful to Donijah Collier, who plays Sir Toby Belch, one of several characters who inject plenty of comedy into the play’s mistaken identify plot.

Donijah, also a senior, wants to go to college to study the arts. While he’s been in many plays at the school, and has recited his fair share of the Bard’s monologues in performance, this is his first full-fledged Shakespeare play.

The most demanding element is timing,” he said during a break from the sword play. It’s important it not lag because Shakespeare is long, and it needs to move fast,” he said.

Another big plus for all the kids is that Andreassi knows huge amounts of the play by heart from having performed several roles in it professionally — including the alcoholic and loud-mouthed Sir Toby.

That’s a big plus for Donijah. He reminds me a lot of Jackie Gleason. Everyone enjoys seeing him get angry.”

But in huddling up with Andreassi to explore the character, Donijah said Andreassi really wanted him to get to know, or imagine, what their characters were like, in effect, off stage, before the play began.

You have to understand his back story,” Donijah said. What makes me drunk? Am I a celebratory drunk or am I an emotionally disturbed drunk?”

What are you?” a reporter asked.

I’m both,” Donijah answered. I’m in mourning … but I feel the need to get on with my life,” he added. Part of his delving into his lines has been to find the moment where that pivot takes place.

As Andreassi rehearsed the sword fight between Donijah and Arinze O’Kwuosah, who plays Sir Andrew Aguecheek, he had general advice for auditions or tech sessions the students might go for in the future: In general when lighting designers are doing a tech rehearsal, it’s better not to wear white.”

Then he turned to one of the girls in the window witnessing the sword fight. Can I hear a scream, please?”

The CAS production of Twelfth Night runs Friday and Saturday, with 2:30 and 7 p.m. performances each day. Tickets purchased in advance are $5 for students and $7 for adults. At the door adults are asked to pay $10, with all proceeds going back into the theater program.

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