PEA First U.S. High School to Perform The Mahabharata

The Academy’s senior acting ensemble, Dance Company and student and professional musicians will collaborate in the annual Mainstage Production the weekend of May 23. This year’s show will be a presentation of The Mahabharata, a renowned Hindu play based on one of the two major Sanskrit epic poems of ancient India.The play was organized and planned by Sarah Ream, theater director, Allison Duke, dance director and music instructor Randy Armstrong. Although the show has aired countless times across the country in various colleges and professional acting companies, Exeter’s show will be the first time it is performed in an American high school.Armstrong said that Duke and Ream made the decision to feature professional level production after the two traveled to India this past summer.“This particular production came out of the inspiration of the global initiatives and when Sarah Ream and Allison Duke went to India on one of the first programs,” Armstrong said. “Ms. Ream was very inspired to see if this production could be done here at the Academy, after being influenced and inspired by the beauty of India and all of the history.”Ream added that the production was fitting to the three directives Principal Thomas Hassan had emphasized for the Academy community: global exploration, intellectual ambition and goodness. “We were inspired by the richness of the culture and we both felt a real obligation to pay back to the school by having a show that embodied all the qualities Principal Hassan mentioned,” she said.After deciding to perform the play, Armstrong noted that the script for the play had to be edited in order to fit the time frame of the show. Originally, the show was nine hours long, but it was condensed.The show will feature the original creative efforts of Academy faculty. The choreography, performed by members of the Dance Company, is a complete original created by Duke. Similarly, Armstrong created original scores to add a unique musicality to the show, adding the “colors of Exeter” to a well-known production.Along with the originality of the show, faculty members who contributed to the planning of the entire production strived to incorporate authentic details and themes of Hinduism.Senior Harshita Yerramreddy, who will be playing the sitar in the production, noted Ream’s efforts to improve the authenticity of the show.“​I've been very impressed by the effort that those involved are putting into the production,” Yerramreddy said. “At the beginning of the term, Ms. Ream reached out to the entire Exeter community asking for those with knowledge of Hinduism and The Mahabharata to speak with her and give input on the show to make sure that it is respectful and in line with the customs of Indian culture,” she added.Lower Eliran Oz, who works backstage to help create the set for the production, commended the respect of the faculty members involved in the show.“[Ms. Ream] made an announcement at Assembly that she really wanted the different communities who deeply care about the production to come forward and help the theater department with setting up a production that is faithful to the story and that is accurate. They did a really good job of going to everyone that this could matter to and asking them whether what is going on is okay and accurate,” Oz said.Yerramreddy said that the Academy is only able to perform such a grand-scale show because of the talented faculty and abundant resources. “We’re lucky to have the resources and teachers that many other high schools do not have, such as Mr. Armstrong, who teaches classical Indian music,” she said.Students and faculty alike felt that the production will spread the awareness of the diverse cultures of the Academy community, in this case, the culture of India. “This is a unique show because it is reflecting a whole different culture, which Fisher Theater normally does not do in its productions,” Yerramreddy said. “Much of the preparation involved studying this epic poem, The Mahabharata, to get a true sense of the meaning and significance of the text.”Armstrong said that cultural productions like these are necessary and beneficial to the Academy.“One of the really amazing things that I think Exeter has been doing over the last couple of decades is opening the diversity of the campus community,” Armstrong said.Students participating in the preparation of the production agreed that the show will provide the Academy community both an opportunity to learn about the cultural aspects of India and Hinduism. Oz noted that the effort that has been put in will inevitably create one of the best shows to be performed in a mainstage production. “We have seen the actors put in so much work into it over the past couple of months now,” Oz said.“There is nothing quite like seeing it all at once with the lights and costumes and the audience reacting.”Yerramreddy agreed and said that all members of the Academy commu should definitely attend. “This show is especially unique because it will be exploring a completely different culture and style of storytelling, so it's something Exeter community members wouldn't want to miss,” she said.