Fans of Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar, rejoice! Briarcliff High School will be performing the musical “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” based on his famous, quirky film from the late 1980s.
The story is about a group of women in Madrid and their tumultuous love lives.
Senior Ava Wu plays the main character, Pepa, who finds out that her lover has left her.
“Pepa is like me in the sense that we both know what we want and how to get it even if it’s difficult,” she said. “She wants to get closure and find out why her lover left her, and she is doing everything she can, but there are moments where you can see her humanity and that it’s hard to be tough all the time, and I like that aspect of her.”
Since the show takes place in Madrid, the students are speaking and singing with Spanish accents.
“Speaking with accents helps us immerse ourselves into the characters and their world,” Ava said.
Senior Jem Behr plays the role of Paulina, a feminist lawyer.
“One of my favorite scenes is when I’m confronting Pepa, but it’s all in her head and she’s imagining it, and I’m doing weird
things like crawling on the table, but then I snap back to reality. It’s a really fun scene,” she said.
According to Jem, the show is different from other shows in that there is no “preachy” message.
“A lot of shows tend to have a message such as ‘don’t do such and such’ and you learn something in the end, but here, the main focus is that there is chaos everywhere, and while we are trying to figure everything out, we suddenly realize that everyone is connected to each other in some way,” she said. “I think that is why many of the songs are overlapping, where people sing different things at the same time. It can be confusing, but it is really fun to perform and very rewarding once you get it right.”
The chaos on stage is accentuated by the scenic design.
“This year we are upping our rigging,” said Stage Manager senior Noah Rinke. “We are hanging a lot of things from the ceiling, like windows, frames and signs, which takes a lot of work. The show is visually very bright and colorful and ‘in your face’. Part of the show takes place in a cab, so we have a 2D front of a cab, and we built wheels to roll it.”
Like other seniors, this is Noah’s last year at the theater in Briarcliff, and it is a bittersweet experience for him.
“I have had such as amazing time working backstage, with all the friendships that I made and the skills I have learned,” he said. “There are so many lessons I can take from my time in the theater. These past few years have felt like joining a community.
From day one I felt like I was part of the group and that feeling has only augmented and compounded. Now that I am on my last show, it feels like I am doing this thing with all these people that I love, and it is a feeling unlike any other. Theater is definitely one of my top things to do at school.”
“I feel like this year our cast is even closer than before,” Ava said. “Rehearsals have been fun because we enjoy the show. It is so funny, the songs are very catchy and memorable, the characters are memorable and there’s great dancing; it is such an underrated show. But we also enjoy hanging out with each other and laughing the entire time.”
“This is a super-fun, peppy show, with fun music, bright colors, big dances, visuals, comic acts – anything you could want as a fun night of entertainment,” Noah added.
The show is appropriate for students in middle school and up.
“The show has some mature themes, but we modified some words to make it appropriate for younger kids – a lot of jokes will go over their heads,” said show director Paul Kite.
Showtimes:
Friday, March 6 at 7 pm
Saturday, March 7 at 1 pm and 7 pm
To purchase tickets:
https://cur8.com/228/project/137777
Price is $15 per person.
For questions, please contact briarcliffticketsales @ gmail.com