Broken Box is getting ready for its Shakespearean play, “The Tempest,” which will be showing from February 28 through March 1.

Written by William Shakespeare, this play has something for everyone from romance to comedy to strange and lyrical fantasy,” according to the director and drama teacher Nancy Moran. The play mostly takes place on a deserted island where the magician Prospero (senior Ben Colman), his daughter Miranda (senior Angeline Gray) and his half-human and half-monster slave Caliban (junior Brian Sator) have to live. This happened because 12 years earlier, Prospero’s brother Antonio (junior Enrique Calderon) had banished him to the island. With the help of a sprite, Ariel (junior Katie Chansler), Prospero seeks revenge by creating a large storm, which brings his brother and crew to the island. Even though the entire play takes place between the hours of 2 and 6 p.m., Prospero is still able to make his brother and crew to realize their wrong ways.

Because the play takes place on an island, there are several challenges to making the setting look realists.

“One of our biggest challenges will be to create the cave in which Caliban lives, as well as covering the entire stage with enough foliage to make it look like a tropical island,” Moran said.

Designing a set is not the only challenge. With Shakespeare as the writer, there is some complex language, which the cast will have to make sure that the audience can understand.

“[This play] requires so much more physical work to communicate what we’re trying to say,” said senior Emily Strichartz, who plays Trinculo. “A lot of people are not familiar with Shakespearean vocabulary, so we have to use our physical movements to elaborate on our words.”

Before the actors can make the audience understand what they’re saying, they first have to understand it themselves. To do this, the class has been doing exercises to learn the meaning of Shakespeare’s work.

“In our scripts, one side of the page is the Shakespearean version, and other other side is the translated modern version,” Emily said. “It’s been really fun seeing what some words translated as.”

The Broken Box team hopes to be able to give a little background about the play in English classes as well as through a teaser trailer during the tutorial session on Tuesday, February 26.