WATCH: That Entire High School Production Of ALIEN Is Now Online

These kids did a pretty damn good job!

By Apr. 29, 2019

Back in March, we learned that the drama club at New Jersey's North Bergen High School had successfully adapted Ridley Scott's Alien for the stage, complete with their own homemade Xenomorph, a Space Jockey (see above) and a dude playing Harry Dean Stanton in a pitch-perfect Hawaiian shirt.

Images and snippets of video taken during the play's run made the rounds on social media, and it wasn't long before Hollywood took note, with Ridley Scott himself donating (via his production company) $5,000 to the school to secure an encore performance. Over the weekend, that performance welcomed one helluva special guest to its audience:

Imagine having the nerve to adapt Alien for the stage on a high school drama club's budget. Now imagine that you pull it off, and people hear about it. Now try to imagine Ridley Scott giving you $5K to keep the party going, and Sigourney effing Weaver showing up to see it for herself. What a thrill that must've been for those kids! 

Anyway, up until this point we've seen images from North Bergen's production of Alien, along with brief snippets of video that were captured during its various performances. But now someone's gone and uploaded the entire thing to YouTube, so those of us who weren't able to make the pilgrimage can see it for ourselves. Let's take a look:

Yeah, the audio's not great, and yeah, the video quality's not much better, but even with those deficiencies, you can really tell these kids put everything they had into this show. The Space Jockey, the Xenomorph, the Chestburster - all look surprisingly well-executed. They even came up with some clever workarounds for moments that wouldn't immediately map onto a live setting (see also: the way they handle Brett's death). We're impressed by what these kids have done, and hope they try and top themselves next year (if they're taking requests, we'd like to suggest Predator).

Hit the comments below if you've got anything to add. Everyone else: stay tuned for more on the Alien franchise as further updates roll in.

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