The theater department is off to Edinburgh this August, bringing “Treasure Island,” this year’s spring play, to an international stage. Sixteen students, led by Upper School (US) Theater Director Ross MacDonald and Arts Department Head and Technical Director Adam Howarth, will be taking their play adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic to Scotland’s Fringe Festival, the largest performing arts festival in the world, with over 2 million viewers every year. The show will be performed at the US the weekend of May 30 and in Edinburgh in late August.
Whitney Pecorcaro ’27 is part of both casts – the cast performing at the US and in Edinburgh.
“I’m excited to see the different energy in a different space,” she said. “But also, I’m excited about going to a theater festival where we get to see other performers and other actors in their element, alongside us, in our element, and seeing how the different shows feed off of each other.”
This will be the school’s second appearance at Fringe, the first time being in 2024 with a production of “Sleepy Hollow.” Whitney plays Israel Hands and Billy Bones in both shows.
“They are very different from each other, but they are both pirates,” Whitney said. “Billy Bones is your typical pirate, very rough and tumble. I am not that, so it’s hard to get into that mindset. My other character Israel Hands is easier to get into. He’s less of a typical pirate, though evil and sinister, he’s less large and boisterous, so it was easier to get into that role.”
Max Barowsky ’29 plays Black Dog the pirate, Job Anderson and George Merry in the US performance.
“My first scene as Black Dog, where I’m confronting Jim Hawkins, is very in-character and very flamboyant,” he said. “I do some shouting, and it’s definitely one of my favorite scenes.”
Like Whitney, Max said he enjoys playing a pirate in the show.
“It’s interesting to play these desperate pirates who have more character than they would seem,” he said. “You would think a pirate is all angry, but they actually have a lot of depth to them.”
While the audience can enjoy the swashbuckling sword fights and tender tragedy of a lost father, they do not witness the behind-the-scenes work to bring the show across the Atlantic, Mr. MacDonald said. The show has two casts, with one performing at the US and one going to Fringe. The six cast members doing both productions rehearse after-school with the Cambridge cast and during CABs and Saturdays with the Edinburgh cast when they can.
Mr. MacDonald described how performing at Fringe is a great way for students to develop their acting craft at a world-renowned festival and gain experience in a unique environment outside of the US.
“It really helps you as an actor to stay grounded. It’s a really good lesson in life, because a lot of people become very uncomfortable with new surroundings so it helps to actually develop a resilience to the unexpected, which I think is what theater helps a lot of the time, finding comfort in the uncomfortable,” he said.
For Edinburgh, the entire set needs to fit in suitcases and be transported overseas. This means the set leaves a lot to the audience’s imagination. Many scenes utilize chairs in certain configurations to imply a tavern or a bedroom, and a large sail signifies a scene is taking place on a ship. Because of the minimalist set, and the fact that at Fringe many of the venues are old gathering halls or meeting spaces, not much color can be added through lighting and sound design.
“Mrs. Brown is brilliant with costumes, so that color and vibrancy is brought in with costumes,” Mr. MacDonald said.
The number of actors also poses a challenge for Costume Designer Louise Brown and her team of student costumers.
“It is a little trickier than usual because we will have some of our characters being played by a different actor in Edinburgh,” Mrs. Brown said. “So what I’m basically doing is creating as many stock costumes relevant to the early 18th century period that the story is set in. What we do is try to make sure that if it is going to be two separate actors for a role, or if they’re switching roles, that they’re pretty much the same size because we just don’t have that much budget.”
Despite the challenges and intricacies they’ve faced, both casts are excited to perform for two very different audiences.
