COMICS 4B

HOMETOWN 5B

TV LISTINGS 6B

Section BPRESS & DAKOTAN

Friday, October 12, 2012

RIV

ER

CIT

Y

RC Photo: Marilyn HuntleyHAVE A PHOTO? Submit it to River City for publi-cation in this space: RiverCity@yankton.net.

2300 Broadway Ave., Yankton, SD 605-665-5694

‘Culture’ HitsThe Skids InYHS Comedy

‘An Evening Of Culture’ Envisions A Local Theater’sHilarious Effort To Stage ‘Romeo And Juliet’

BY ANDREW ATWALandrew.atwal@yankton.net

When the lights go up on thisfall’s Yankton High School (YHS) pro-duction next week, it will be the firstplay that Pam Kallis has directed.

After spending years involvedwith the design and technical as-pects of theater at YHS, she has de-cided to try her hand at directingthis year.

“I have been doing the technicalaspect of theater here since 1996.I’ve costumed every single show atYHS since the fall of that year,” Kallissaid. “When Bob Beard decided toretire from directing, I thought I’dgive it a try.”

Her first production will be a playwithin a play. “An Evening of Cul-ture” by Mark Landon Smith, pro-duced with special arrangementwith Baker’s Plays, is a story thattakes place in Mineola County, whichis located “in the middle of nowhere”in the South.

“It’s supposed to be about a com-munity theater group from some-where in the south called theMineola Society for Cultural Recogni-tion,” Kallis said. “The group is put-ting on ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and arevery enthusiastic and very positiveabout it, but just are not very good.”

The first act of the play occursabout 30 minutes before the curtainis set to go up on the ‘Romeo andJuliet’ production. However thingsare not going well. The set is not yetdone, there is a dog barking back-stage and with the play taking placein a middle school gymnasium, thescoreboard is going off.

“All kinds of things go wrong,”Kallis said. “Things continue to gowrong all throughout the produc-tion.”

She said she wanted to do a com-edy this year for a number of rea-sons.

“It’s an election year, so I reallywanted to put on a comedy,” Kallissaid. “I didn’t want anything serious,I wanted something that would makepeople laugh.

Kallis added that this is a familyshow and there is nothing too offen-sive and nothing too deep, and thatthere are many jokes that little kidswill laugh at during the play.

Students began rehearsing forthe play during the first week of Sep-tember, and have been practicingfive or six days a week since then.

“We have had to work aroundband competitions and things likethat, but the kids have been reallygreat and really flexible with every-thing,” Kallis said.

Tickets for the play are $5 foradults, $4 for students and $3 with astudent activities card. The playtakes place Oct. 19, 20 and 22 at theSummit Center theater.

“One of the things that reallydrew me to this show was all thesilly things that go on,” Kallis said.“There are really inappropriate cos-tumes for the times. Lady Capulet

PLAY | PAGE 10B

Yankton High School plays Shake-speare for laughs with the comedy“An Evening of Culture.” TOPRIGHT: In the “play within a play,”Amber Livingston plays Mildred(who plays Juliet) and PadenSchmidt plays Bubba (who reluc-tantly plays Romeo); LEFT: Costum-ing for the “Romeo and Juliet”production takes many forms, asdisplayed by Lady Capulet (left,played by Alexa Berg as Naomi) andthe nurse (played by Payton Tercaas Faye); TOP LEFT: The openingchorus for “Romeo and Juliet” isprovided by the Skeeter’s Hay andFeed girls, from left: Alanna Binder(as Mary Lou); Jackie Pajl (as Lu-cille); Tara Richardson (as Sissy K)and Susie Kinsley (as Sue Ann). Tosee or purchase images from thisevent, visit spotted.yankton.net.(Kelly Hertz/P&D)