Emmie Boese
Lantern Staff
Originally written by Mark Twain in the 19th century, “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” opened and ran from Thursday, Sept. 27 through Saturday, Sept. 29.
“It’s a story about a gentleman who gets hit on the head, and he gets transported back in time,” Bob Peterson, director of the production, said.
Peterson is excited for the audience to watch the show. “I hope they take away first of all that they had a good evening in the theater and that they enjoyed themselves and that it was an entertaining evening,” Peterson said. “It’s interesting because a lot of scholars have dissected Twain’s story, but I always want audiences to take away what their sensibilities allow them to take away.”
Peterson enjoyed how the whole production came together. He also hoped that the audience visualizes what would happen to them if they were to go through the same thing that the main character goes through.
“I really just like the whole experience,” Peterson said.” “It’s all those components that make the whole thing my favorite. It might be interesting for them to think about what happened to them if they were transported to a different place in time.”
Sophomore Sophia Watkins plays the main character Hank Morgan’s love interest.
“I play Laine/Sandy, whom is in love with in both modern and medieval time,” Watkins said. “My character is sweet, caring and humorous.”
She mentioned that once everything comes together it makes for a great show.
“Getting all the props, music, lighting and shift changes to run smoothly has been extremely difficult; however, when it all comes together and looks alive is my favorite part,” Watkins said.
One of the finishing touches that Watkins mentioned is getting the set and lighting ready for the show. One of the people in charge of that is freshman stage manager Janett Duerksen. Duerksen also had several other responsibilities in order to help get ready for the show.
“I’ve been at every rehearsal for the past three weeks,” Duerksen said. “Anytime the actors need a line called or there’s a note that needs to be written down, we are in charge of it and we are pretty much in charge of memorizing the script down to key.”
Duerksen explained that she and the rest of tech crew built a mobile set that Peterson imagined himself.
“It took us about three weeks maybe two and a half because we had it built and then we painted it and we had it done and ready,” Duerksen said. “He made, and it imagined it, so it never had to go off stage.”
Duerksen said that the finishing touches for the tech side of the production came with the lighting.
“We sit through and we go through the whole show que for que, and we set all the lighting que for que and it’s just techies and that’s what we do on a Saturday before our first tech rehearsal,” Duerksen said
Performances opened Thursday at 7:30 p.m. with another showing at the same time of Friday and Saturday and a matinee showing Saturday at 2 p.m.
