Schools
Peekskill Students to Appear in Shakespeare Festival Production
Peekskill High School's Leilani Bridgewater and Christian Urbina to play roles in Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival play opening on Aug. 30
Two Peekskill High School students, Leilani Bridgewater and Christian Urbina, have been cast in the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival’s extraordinary summer production, "Rip van Winkle, or Cut the Old Moon Into Stars." Author and director Seth Bockley has retold Washington Irving’s classic story of a man who has second chance at life after a twenty year disappearance. The production features 40 actors, combining professionals with local community members of all ages.
Urbina, a senior who attends Peekskill High School's Summit Academy, and Bridgewater, a junior known as "Nani," are members of the ensemble and play multiple roles in the play. Neither wants to reveal spoilers ahead of the show’s opening on August 30, but they greatly enjoy the differing parts they inhabit.
“I am one of a group who Rip encounters when he first goes into the mountains, and the last thing he sees before he goes to sleep," Urbina explains. "Let’s just say we could be your worst nightmare.”
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Bridgewater also performs both solo and as part of a group.
“I enjoy the connections I’ve made with my fellow actors; we have to trust each other enormously to carry out our roles and responsibilities.”
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Music, puppetry and dance are an integral part of the production as well, and Peekskill's own professional musician/dancer Ms. Belle Ritter is the show’s choreographer.
“Rip Van Winkle is part of the Full Circle initiative of the Festival, a full-time year-round programming initiative to build and sustain community,” said HVSF Director of Community Engagement Ms. Elizabeth Audley.
The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival was founded in 1987 and has established a reputation for lucid, imaginative, engaging and highly inventive productions staged on the lawn at the Boscobel Mansion in Garrison, NY.
The play will be performed August 31 through September 3. For more information, contact Full Circle Associate Producer Paloma Wake at: pwake@hvshakespeare.org
You can read more on the play inthis New York Times article.
