From November 3rd to 12th, the Gaels Theater Guild performed Pippin in the Jim3 House of Performing Arts theater with their own little twist!

The storyline for the original Pippin was based on the history of Pepin, the son of the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, King Charlamagne. The Gaels Theater Guild wanted to add their own twist on the story. Instead of being set in the year 780, this performance was set in Las Vegas, 1947, and had a Godfather theme to make it feel closer to home for the audience.

Our main character, Pippin, is trying to find an inner purpose after finishing university as well as trying to find his place in or out of his mafia family. From the interesting sets, to the colorful and moody lighting, this production was truly a mesmerizing show to watch! It left the audience in awe about the quality and love that was put into making this production.

Student Oliva Pusateri ‘26 said that, “the quality of the performance was amazing and the acting was phenomenal.”

Many scenes of intriguing plots and funny jokes sewed into the wonderful singing and acting of the cast and characters, the quality itself didn’t feel just like a highschool production–it made the audience feel engaged in the story and did not disappoint.

Throughout the show, the Leading Player played by Jasmine Onwutuebe, acted as the narrator of the show, walking the audience into and through the story of Pippin. She had put much emphasis on the ending of the show, saying that the audience will “never forget”. This added mystery and anticipation as to what the ending could be–though (spoilers) the audience would have never expected that Pippin would have to jump into flames and burn to death! At this moment of the climax as the entire cast is encouraging Pippin to seal his glory and purpose–he backs away. Pippin sees that he doesn’t need to live an extravagant and eventful life to be fulfilled. This moment of clarity portrayed by Luke Martin (the actor for Pippin) was something close to genuine. His acting, as well as the rest of the cast, was beautifully done and shows the true talent of actors and actresses!

Though the actors were amazing, the crew deserved some praise. The sound and lighting were beautiful and the smooth transitions when changing the stage was very clean. Without the hard work coming from the crew the show would not be as amazing as it was.

“The beauty of theater is that everybody works equally hard with equally as much dedication— it doesn’t matter what you do,” said Marie Munoz ‘25 who played Catherine in the show, “from the actors on stage, to the individuals running the back of house, to the people working on the deck, to people working hard to make the props look amazing and to make sure costumes are pristine.”

Overall, everyone who worked on Pippin put lots of love into making this show come to life and it definitely showed through their amazing work!

Do not forget, the Gaels Theater Guild will be performing Les Miserables after the winter break!