{"id":23264,"date":"2025-03-04T10:23:20","date_gmt":"2025-03-04T17:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-drama-program-prepares-to-present-treasure-island\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:31:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:31:43","slug":"montezuma-cortez-drama-program-prepares-to-present-treasure-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-drama-program-prepares-to-present-treasure-island\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma-Cortez drama program prepares to present \u2018Treasure Island\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Students
Students are also learning sword fighting for the play\u2019s fight scenes. (Nicholaus Sandner\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Adventure, pirates and buried treasure are making their way to the Montezuma-Cortez High School with the MCHS drama program\u2019s upcoming performance of \u201cTreasure Island.\u201d The show will be held on six occasions, with opening night to be held Friday, March 7 at 7 p.m. in the Ralph E. Vavak Memorial Auditorium.<\/p>\n

Following performances will be held on Saturday, March 8 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.; Friday, March 14 at 7 p.m. and Saturday, March 15 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.<\/p>\n

The play will follow Ken Ludwig\u2019s stage adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson\u2019s adventure novel, \u201cTreasure Island.\u201d The story follows young Jim Hawkins, played by Tianne Nielson, who strikes out on an journey to find buried treasure after discovering a treasure map. Along the way, Jim meets the cunning Long John Silver, played by Brian Sandner, and other dynamic characters.<\/p>\n

\"Cast
Cast members of \u201cTreasure Island\u201d are learning to speak in dialect for the play. (Nicholaus Sandner\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Rehearsals for \u201cTreasure Island\u201d have been taking place since the beginning of January, according to MCHS drama program director Nicholaus Sandner. Auditions were held in December, and the cast of about 40 have been working toward their performances ever since.<\/p>\n

One of the challenges and exciting aspects of preparing for this play has been found in teaching the students how to emulate the dialects of their characters. And not just one or two dialects. Sandner shares students have been learning six to eight different dialects with the help of a dialect coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been working really hard on a variety of things,\u201d Sandner said. \u201cThis one\u2019s a challenge because we\u2019re working on dialects and getting the characters to speak in an authentic sort of way. We have six or eight different dialects that we\u2019re trying to integrate into the show, from various characters to show the wide range of backgrounds of some of the pirate characters.\u201d<\/p>\n

The online dialect coach also helped teach students dialects during a past MCHS production of \u201cFiddler on the Roof.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has this process that breaks down the key sounds of that dialect and then making what vowel sounds you shift as you move into pronouncing it differently than how you would speak,\u201d Sandner said. \u201cHe also records all of the lines from the show in that dialect, so the students can have their own recording that connects with their character and their lines of dialogue. They can practice along with that \u2026 it\u2019s a lot of extra work cause, in addition to learning the lines, they\u2019re also having to learn to say them in a unique way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the dialects students are learning for this show include three or four different English dialects, Irish, Scottish, Hampshire (the classic pirate accent), proper British and Cockney.<\/p>\n

Cast members have also been working tirelessly to prepare for the sword fight and other fight scenes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother thing we\u2019ve been working hard on is the fight scenes,\u201d Sandner said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got sword fighting and there\u2019s a gunbattle with Flintlock pistols, and we\u2019re working on a lot of stage combat. We\u2019ve been working with some fencing techniques to keep everybody safe on stage while making it look really exciting too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sander added that one of the students is helping make custom Flintlock pistols that \u201cwill actually shoot fire from the barrel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ll look like they\u2019re firing on stage using stage-grade pyrotechnics,\u201d Sander said. \u201cIt\u2019s exciting too. It\u2019ll really have a lot of pizzazz to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The set will also be different from what the group has done in the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe majority of the time, it is on board a ship,\u201d Sandner said of the set. \u201cWe\u2019re working on a mast with a crow\u2019s nest and some climbable cargo nets that the actors can climb up and down. It\u2019ll be really exciting looking. Very different from what we\u2019ve done before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sandner shared students are enjoying getting into their \u201ccolorful pirate character\u201d personas and have been learning a lot about nautical terms and the time period the story takes place in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way that people speak is unique, and there\u2019s a lot of words that they don\u2019t necessarily know the definitions of. We\u2019ve been learning about nautical terms and the time period specific references,\u201d Sandner said.<\/p>\n

Tickets for adults are $10 and students and senior tickets are $6. Children 5 years old and under can attend for free.<\/p>\n

Tickets can be purchased at the door or online at www.mchsdrama.booktix.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

have been working with a dialect coach and perfecting fight scenes in preparation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1060,21,28,60,36,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arts-entertainment","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78042,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23264\/revisions\/78042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23264"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}