It’s story time! Cherry Hill East’s Lab Theatre show this year, Story Theatre, is a fun, energetic and hilarious experimental play that appeals to audiences both old and young alike. In it, a total of eleven student directors (including myself), along with their various assistant directors and stage managers, have been in charge for the past five weeks in putting together a collection of vignettes that are based on classic fables and stories of Aesop and the Brothers Grimm such as Henny Penny and The Fisherman and His Wife.

From a technical standpoint, the show has a set that has been in construction since early September with a very rustic and earthy tone that includes platforms built at various heights, staircases, ramps and even a projection slide up center-stage that “flips pages” for the transition from vignette to vignette. In short, it is a playground for the actors, who all play various roles as a “medieval troupe” throughout the entire play, never exiting the stage.

Like all classic stories that people have been told since they were young children, this show portrays and reveals hidden truths about themselves that they otherwise wouldn’t recognize both in good and bad ways.

“I think as a society, [we don’t] respect the literature [of these] fairy tales…” said Mr. Weaver, East’s theatre director and producer of Story Theatre, “…It’s a brilliant form of communication.”

And what a brilliant form of communication it is, especially when it is done right. For these past five weeks, the actors of this show, a nice sprinkling of close to thirty freshmen and sophomore actors, have been encouraged by Mr. Weaver, student directors and their staff to be as “big” as their characters, having good stage presence and really thinking outside of the box.

“From an acting point of view,” Mr. Weaver continued, “[This show] really challenges [student’s] creativity…[Story Theatre] more than most [shows] lends itself to that.”

Story Theatre has two shows this week on both Oct. 10^th and 11^th at 7:30 p.m. Also, with $8.00 for a ticket, audiences are guaranteed a special opportunity to be entertained, laugh until it hurts and bear witness, once again, to all of these timeless stories that they have probably heard at one point or another as young children themselves.