Aug. 24--When Sandburg High School students took the stage for performances of "As You Wish" this month, some cast members had their sights set on a stage overseas.
In addition to getting students interested in theater, including freshmen, from the opening week of the school year, the play was part of a fundraising effort to send some students to perform next summer at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe -- a three-week arts festival that last year brought nearly 50,000 performances of more than 3,000 shows to Scotland's capital city.
Sandburg parent Sharon Burnison, one of the organizers of the trip, said the three performances on Aug. 14-15 raised about $2,500, bringing the total the students have raised so far to roughly $25,000. They're planning more fundraisers over the next year because the trip will cost about $6,500 per student, though parents will be asked to contribute some toward that cost.
Sandburg was first invited in 2012 to submit a videotaped audition through the American High School Theatre Festival, which brings students from about 50 schools to perform at the Festival Fringe, said Geoff Epperson, the Performing Arts Center director at Sandburg.
Sandburg made the cut, and 15 students spent two weeks at the Scotland festival -- giving five performances of "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind" plus an impromptu performance of a 60-second version of William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" during a visit to the playwright's birthplace.
"I don't think it sunk in until we were on the stage before the first performance," Epperson said. "For those two weeks, they're living and working in a city. They're really a traveling theater company. The word that comes to mind is transformative."
Now, Sandburg's theater program has been invited to the festival in August 2016, Epperson said.
Junior Mandi Burnison said she has been "super jealous" and is counting down until the 2016 trip because her sister performed at the Festival Fringe in 2012.
Students said they were looking forward to seeing productions by performers from around the world who might have different styles, but senior Andy Rich said he's also looking forward to introducing them to Sandburg's work.
"When you have a wider audience that can take the memory back home, there's a wider impact," he said at a rehearsal for "As You Wish."
Sandburg students first put on "As You Wish" before the 2012 trip to Edinburgh. Epperson said they made a few changes this time to the play, which is an interpretation of the novel and 1987 film "The Princess Bride. A nearly 40-student cast and crew worked on the show since June.
"It's also the first time they presented a full play on the first weekend of the school year," he said.
"There's so many incoming freshmen and a lot got lead roles, so it's been cool to see them coming in not knowing a lot and becoming really good actors," said Chris Corcoran, a senior who got involved in theater during his sophomore year. "I'm kind of envious they got started right away."
One of the freshman, Anna Wcislak, said she has been involved in theater but never a production as big as "As You Wish."
"It (was) cool to get started even before school starts," she said.
lzumbach@tribpub.com
