Pequot students to stage short plays

PEQUOT LAKES -- Pequot Lakes Theatre Program students will perform two short plays that examine the human response to the losses the nation suffered Sept. 11.

"I Bring You Flowers" and "Riders to the Sea" will be staged at 7 p.m. Friday, Saturday and May 17 and 3 p.m. May 18 in the Pequot Lakes School auditorium. Admission, which includes both plays, is $3 for students and $5 for adults. Tickets may be purchased at the door or from one of the actors.

"I Bring You Flowers" and "Riders to the Sea" will be presented by special arrangements with Baker's Plays, Quincy, Mass.

If you go

Who: Pequot Lakes High School students

What: "I Bring You Flowers" and "Riders to the Sea"

Where: Pequot Lakes School auditorium

When: 7 p.m. Friday, Saturday and May 17; 3 p.m. May 18

Cost: $3, students; $5, adults at the door or from an actor

"I Bring You Flowers," by William Lange, is a warm, compassionate and powerful play about a young couple seated on a park bench discussing domestic matters and their daughter who has died. Despite the painful loss of their baby girl, there is a desperate hope in his heart that they can continue on and a desperate fear in hers of abandoning the garden and her own view of reality. "I Bring You Flowers" includes three student actors: Lucas Lubke, Lindsey Wolterstorff and Tiffany Morris.

"Riders to the Sea" is about a family who lived during the 1880s in the Aran Isles, off the west coast of Ireland. It is a land of poverty, hunger and hardship and dependent on the sea and faith for survival. The main character, Maurya, has lost a husband and four sons to the sea, and now her youngest son, Bartley, plans to travel to the Galway horse fair by ship to trade their tinker ponies so the family can survive. It is a world turned upside down, where the old outlive the young.

"Riders to the Sea" was written by one of Ireland's most famous playwrights, J.M. Synge. Synge knew poverty and hardship, dying as a young man when his plays were just beginning to be recognized for their symbolism and simplicity. The Pequot Lakes High School cast includes Katie Wulf, Sarah Nienaber, Brittany Halaas, Mike Cerise, Stephanie Olson, Katrina Johnston, Tiffany Morris, Andy Russell and Jacob Lubke.

Daren Blanck is the Pequot Lakes School theater director. For more information, contact him at (218) 568-9298 or dblanck@pequotlakes.k12.mn.us.