A Joyous Play: Twelfth Night in Pine Valley

On the evening of May 31 at 7 PM, Shakespeare entered Pine Valley in the guise of the production Bruce Coville's adaptation of Twelfth Night presented by the Pine Valley Players under the direction of Dianne Holly of Pine Valley and the assistance of Mary Aragon of Guatay.



The Pine Valley Players formed in the middle of April as a group of homeschooled students who were to learn theatre history and the dramatic arts from Ms. Holly who has been involved in productions with UC Santa Barbara, UC San Diego, and San Diego's Old Globe Theatre. Over the six weeks of the class, the students only had the scripts for a month and presented the 40-minute production with a mere 15 hours of rehearsal. And the Pine Valley Players did a bang-up job.

Theatre-goers packed the Community Clubhouse, and from the laughter and applause, one can assume they enjoyed the production very much. The plot of Twelfth Night is as convoluted as most Shakeapearean comedies are: Duke Orsino (Joseph Daniels) has fallen in love with the Lady Olivia (Elizabeth Barrett). Viola, a shipwrecked young woman (Aubrianna Sprague), disguises herself as a young man named Cesario who becomes a messenger for the Duke, and while serving the Duke, Viola falls in love with him. While spurning the Duke's love, Lady Olivia, in turn, falls in love with Cesario -- Viola in disguise. A wonderful subplot involves the maid Maria (Olivia Martin-Spisak) along with Sir Toby (Rusty Daniels) and Sir Andrew (Kaila Holloway) playing a trick on Lady Olivia's manservant, Malvolio (Jack Arnold of Descanso). Other characters include the fool Feste (Josh Murrell), Viola's long-lost brother Sebastian (Caleb Murrell) who returns near the end of the play and is mistaken for Cesario and Cesario for him, and Sebastian's friend Antonio (Moriah Aragon). Other players include Matthew Aragon as the sea captain/priest, Briana Black as an officer/servant, and Hannah Holloway as a servant/officer. The play, abridged to two acts, was held together by the narrative talents of Liz Murrell and Mikala Aragon.


(Lady Olivia and Duke Orsino vie for Cesario/Viola)

Thanks go to Pine Valley Community Church for the lights and sound, to Alpine Anglican Church of the Blessed Trinity for donating substantial funds for costumes and props as well as a web page devoted to photos of the play, to the Mountain Empire Creative Arts Council for publicity, to Gary Holloway for videography, to Dru Arnold for stage managing, to Mary Aragon for the adaptation of the play, to Lianna Sprague for her help backstage, to Dianne Holly and Debbe Graham for costumes and props, and especially to Dianne Holly for her wonderful direction and tutelage of the young people. The play ended with a speech by Ms. Holly who, though never having worked with students younger than college-age before, thoroughly enjoyed her experience working with Mountain Empire homeschooled students.

We hope that this production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is the first of many plays to be performed by the Pine Valley Players. The Mountain Empire Creative Arts Council hopes to support future dramatic productions in the backcountry. If you are interested at all in assisting with a drama program in our area, please contact Susanne Barrett through a comment on this blog.