The Great Gatsby

This was the fall play this year in which Liam Resende ‘27 wrote a review on below.

This November, The Great Gatsby, was performed on Friday, November 14th, and Saturday, November 15th at Bishop Stang High School. 

This play covers the story of Jay Gatsby, a mysterious and enigmatic millionaire who throws extraordinary parties to get over the loss of his love, Daisy Buchanan. His neighbor, Nick Carraway, is living a new life as a salesman to become rich. With Daisy Buchanan as his cousin, and observing Gatsby’s acts being next door, Nick seeks to uncover the secret and reasoning of Gatsby’s lavish party events.

From this play review, I asked Thomas Sullivan about what the behind the scenes was like and he shared things like, “Whenever a scene was changing, we had to be quick!” and claims, “You would have to be fast in transitioning scenes, or else you’d get hurt.”

This comes to show one of the difficulties of working in the theatre, alongside several crew members also tediously working on props for the play. Though all of this was a challenge, what’s worth it in the end is the hard work that paid off and the praise they earned later.

  • For the past couple of months, the Bishop Stang Theater Company has been working hard at rehearsals, and they had an outstanding performance on November 15th and 16th. This year’s production was The Great Gatsby. Jack Nylin, a junior who played the role of Jay Gatsby, said, “We got great chemistry for the show, I feel like we’re all buddies here. The chemistry translates directly to the show.” Multiple students talked about the purpose of the show, being The American Dream. 

    The students are very committed to the play, not only practicing their own scenes, but observing others while they rehearse as well. The theatre company is something that many of the students involved enjoy a lot. Saphira Botelho, a junior in the theatre company, played the role of Daisy Buchanan. She says, “I think the play is coming together very well.” She reported that “even though we had a short amount of time, that wasn’t a problem for us.” Saphira says she loves doing theatre because she loves portraying the characters on stage. Even from the short time we spent interviewing, we were able to learn the passion and dedication that the actors shared for theater.

     During the day of opening night, the school watched a preview of the play in the gym. The short preview gave us all the evidence we needed to tell that the actors and director collectively put in their best efforts. The audience was able to engage with the production and erupted with reactions when something interesting happened. That night, The Great Gatsby kicked off the school year with a wonderful performance. 

    Lauren Wilkie ‘29 & Kelsey Ferreira ‘29