This high school’s production of Alien is going viral, and the “trailer” is epic
Most former theater kids remember the days of low-budget costumes, flubbed lines, and over-crowded dressing rooms. But USA Today reports that North Bergen High School in New Jersey recently shunned high school theater tropes when it staged a play based on the movie Alien.
According to USA Today, an English teacher at the school, Perfecto Cuervo, adapted and directed the production. The play’s unbelievable production value was thanks in part to designer Steven Defendini, who teaches drawing and digital media at the school. It managed to perfectly capture the feel of the iconic 1979 sci-fi thriller by using recycled materials. Defendini told Entertainment Weekly that a total of 16 students and three teachers worked on the production. Cuervo also notedthat he spent two months of nights and weekends working on it.
"My inspiration was just that I’m a huge fan of the movie," he said.
Like most high school productions, Alien: The Play ran for just a couple nights—on March 19th and March 22nd. But photos of the play have been spreading on social media faster than you can say “Ripley.” A student first posted pictures from the show to Reddit on March 20th. A March 23rd tweet about the production from user Paul Owens has been liked more than 51,000 times and retweeted almost 17,000 times. false
A clip of the play, featuring one of the Xenomorphs in action, has received more than 96,000 likes and nearly 23,000 retweets.
I love that north bergen high school did alien last night as their school play, so I’m gonna keep tweeting about how great it is..everything was made from recycled materials .. so nuts amazing I’m so proud of my hometown pic.twitter.com/EEMEbankDz
— Andrew Fernandez (@bhsdrew) March 23, 2019
The show has since grabbed the attention of people ranging from former MythBusters host Adam Savage to comedian Patton Oswalt.
OMFSM i need to see this. Wow https://t.co/96E872XUTp
— Adam Savage (@donttrythis) March 23, 2019
This is fantastic. Blows my high school’s adaptation of PINK FLAMINGOS out of the water. https://t.co/oNW6ZlZiIP
— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) March 24, 2019
We are impressed! 40 years and still going strong… https://t.co/NJGJIZj2oq
— Alien (@AlienAnthology) March 23, 2019
The students’ trailer for the production is equally as impressive (it has more than 135,000 views on YouTube).
We’re officially in awe of the drama students at North Bergen High School. And we can’t wait for next year’s show…maybe Predator?
