2024: King Lear
North Theatre Awarded Critic’s Choice for 26th Year!
PLUS ENSEMBLE, TECHNICAL, AND ACTING AWARDS!
The cast and crew of Appleton North High School's one act production of “King Lear” recently competed at the Wisconsin Interscholastic Theatre Festival state finals at UW-Milwaukee receiving top honors from a unanimous judges’ decision. In addition to the prestigious "Critic’s Choice" for overall excellence, North was awarded an Outstanding Ensemble Acting Award and an Outstanding Technical Theatre Award. Two students, Max Lietzan-Buechel and Bennett Boggs, were recognized with Outstanding Individual Acting Awards.
This is the 26th consecutive year that Appleton North has been honored with the top award of Critics Choice, the only school in the nearly 100-year history of the competition to achieve such a distinction. Appleton North Theatre has been nationally recognized as one of the premier educational theatre programs in Wisconsin.
North Theatre One Act Advances to State!
FREE STATE SENDOFF PERFORMANCE OF ‘KING LEAR’ TUES., NOV. 19
The Appleton North High School One-Act cast and crew will present a state send-off performance of the play KING LEAR on Tuesday, Nov. 19, at 7:30 p.m. in the North auditorium. Admission is FREE, and the event will conclude by 8:30 p.m.
The 40 members of North’s cast and crew recently qualified for the 2024 Wisconsin Interscholastic State Theatre Festival Final competition with their sectionals performance on Nov. 7. More than 1800 high school students will participate in this year’s festival, which requires each school to present for evaluation a fully-staged play of no longer than 40 minutes. Less than half of the competing high schools typically qualify for state after having competed in both district and sectional meets held in October and early November. Each qualifying school then performs for a panel of four judges during the two-day festival, which adjudicates the performance and decides on the quality of the production and what honors, if any, should be awarded.
This is the twenty-sixth year in a row that North has qualified for state.
ABOUT ‘KING LEAR’
Considered by many to be the greatest tragedy ever written, Shakespeare’s KING LEAR dramatizes the story of an aged king of ancient Britain, whose plan to divide his kingdom among his three daughters ends tragically. When he tests each by asking how much she loves him, the older daughters, Goneril and Regan, falsely flatter him. The youngest, Cordelia, does not, choosing instead to speak honestly and without false praise. Lear, in anger, disowns and banishes her.
Director Ron Parker states, “KING LEAR is Shakespeare’s darkest, most complex creation. It is a timeless and surprisingly contemporary drama that asks us to examine the nature of our own humanity and inhumanity through the lens of family, frailty, ambition, loyalty, madness, love and loss.”
Though rejected by her father, Cordelia’s true and honest nature wins her the affection of the King of France, whom she marries. Lear divides his kingdom between his other two daughters, Goneril and Regan, who quickly turn on their father, casting him out into a furious storm where he quickly descends into madness.
Meanwhile, the Earl of Gloucester’s illegitimate son Edmund turns Gloucester against his legitimate son, Edgar. Gloucester, appalled at the daughters’ treatment of Lear, gets news that a French army, led by Cordelia, is coming to help Lear. Edmund betrays Gloucester to Regan and her husband, Cornwall, who puts out Gloucester’s eyes and makes Edmund the Earl of Gloucester.
Cordelia and the French army save Lear, but their army is defeated. Edmund imprisons Cordelia and Lear, who regains his sanity and begs her forgiveness. Edgar then mortally wounds Edmund in a trial by combat. Dying, Edmund confesses that he has ordered the deaths of Cordelia and Lear. Word is sent to the prison to release them, but Cordelia is hanged before help arrives. An anguished Lear enters carrying Cordelia’s lifeless body. Overcome by grief and guilt, he quickly follows her in death.
North Theatre has been awarded the top honor of Critic’s Choice at the Wisconsin High School Theatre Festival every year since 1999, the only school to accomplish such a feat in the history of the festival!