{"id":24098,"date":"2025-01-08T20:50:16","date_gmt":"2025-01-09T03:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-theater-program-to-present-moby-dick-rehearsed-this-weekend\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:48:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:48:19","slug":"dolores-theater-program-to-present-moby-dick-rehearsed-this-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-theater-program-to-present-moby-dick-rehearsed-this-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolores theater program to present \u2018Moby Dick \u2013 Rehearsed\u2019 this weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dolores
Dolores Schools\u2019 production of the play \u201cMoby Dick \u2013 Rehearsed\u201d features crew Aylan Warren, shown raising a sail; Jordyn Gorsuch, left, playing Ahab; Amelia Pym, right, playing Ishmael; and Julianne Vega, seated, playing Starbuck. (Peter Swingle\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Dolores school district is preparing for its performance of \u201cMoby Dick \u2013 Rehearsed,\u201d scheduled for the secondary school commons on Friday, Jan. 10 and Saturday, Jan. 11.<\/p>\n

The Friday performance is at 7 p.m., and the Saturday performances are at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Tickets are $3 for students and $5 for adults.<\/p>\n

Written by Orson Welles, the play is adapted from Herman Melville\u2019s novel \u201cMoby Dick.\u201d The story follows Captain Ahab and his obsession with killing Moby Dick, the white whale, and the dangers and consequences of his quest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dialogue is pretty much straight from the book, written in kind of a free verse as the actors say their lines,\u201d Dolores theater director Peter Swingle told The<\/em> Journal<\/em>. \u201cWe\u2019ve been rehearsing since September; it is a very challenging script.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cast and crew consists of 25 to 30 people, including students from sixth grade through high school.<\/p>\n

Swingle said the play has been on his mind for several years, but he was waiting for the cast that could bring the big story to life on Dolores\u2019s small stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s always a challenge, but we\u2019ve accomplished that, I think,\u201d Swingle said. \u201cWe\u2019ve rehearsed over break for four days, and the artists have been meeting weekly since September.\u201d<\/p>\n

The stage won\u2019t feature a whale or a ship; the cast will encourage the audience to complete the story with their imagination.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the great lines in this is one cast member\u2019s, who says, \u2018Peace out our imperfections in your mind, and when we speak of whale boats and whales, you see them,\u2019\u201d Swingle said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have a whale. We don\u2019t have a ship, but we conjure that between actor and audience in their minds through music and pantomime, movement and dialogue, staging, ladders, step ladders and platforms. We have old tarps they use as sails.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking back on the hard work that has commenced in the months leading up to the play\u2019s opening night, Swingle said what stands out is the dedication and work put in by the students involved in the play.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe intense amount of work and devotion that they have put into bringing this story to their audience has moved me,\u201d Swingle said. \u201cThere\u2019s a line that Ishmael says, describing Ahab\u2019s tear falling into the Pacific, and adding that one drop in this eternity \u2026 it\u2019s the beautiful way they add the lines written by Melville and then put into the play by Orson Welles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the three leads in the original book and play are male, Dolores\u2019s Captain Ahab, Ishmael and Starbuck are played by female students, and Swingle said they have done a \u201cbeautiful\u201d job bringing their characters to life.<\/p>\n

Jadyn Gorsuch plays Ahab, while Amelia Pym plays Ishmael, one of the crew members on Ahab\u2019s ship. Pym is also on the art crew.<\/p>\n

Both students said their love of theater drew them to try out for the play. Pym also helped with woodworking and other aspects of set design.<\/p>\n

Gorsuch and Pym both noted that getting into their characters was difficult at first, but the more they learned about their role, the more they could bring their characters to life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s channeling the emotion,\u201d Gorsuch said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of hard to envision wanting to kill a whale so passionately, but you kind of let that anger fuel you, and it\u2019s so powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI struggled with finding out who Ishmael was as a character,\u201d Pym echoed. \u201cIt was a large journey trying to find out how I wanted to act him, but he\u2019s experienced a lot, and he\u2019s telling the story how he sees it. I thought that was also very impactful. It\u2019s been a joy finding out who he is and becoming like him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The poetic script is one of the aspects of the play the leads hope the audience finds impactful, as well as the deep and meaningful messages found throughout the story.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope they realize the depth of it,\u201d Gorsuch said. \u201cHerman Melville was such an amazing author. There\u2019s so many fascinating things in the script, if you really listen, and some of the things we say have such a beautiful meaning to them \u2026 I just hope people watch and enjoy the show. I hope they are impacted and I hope they find some interest in the book if they haven\u2019t already read it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very, in my opinion, a poetic script,\u201d Pym said. \u201cI think it has a lot of value and a lot of messages. So, I really hope the audience can really be impacted by the play.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

theater students have been preparing for this play since September<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[363,44,103,155,28,60,29,910],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-24098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arts","tag-dolores","tag-dolores-schools-re-4a","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-theatre"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24098","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=24098"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78400,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24098\/revisions\/78400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24098"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=24098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}