It is 1999. Your Doc Martens have given you terrible blisters, but not worse than your jellies, so you cut your losses and rock from foot-to-foot, hoping to relieve the pressure. The line outside the theater is long, and the neon lights of the marquee light excited faces that reflect on the puddles of the wet sidewalk. You hand the person in the booth $8. It is 1999, and “10 Things I Hate About You” is in theaters. 26 years later, the view from the back of the line is the same. Parents with kids, couples on date nights and leagues of college students who get to experience the classic turn-of-the-century romance in the same way as their parents. “I think people our age are nostalgic for that era,” said Reece Pitcher, fourth-year public relations major. “Then, the older demographic, they remember that time, they were there, they saw the movie, they have the clothes.” Pitcher is a student in ComStrat 485. She and her classmates were tasked with organizing and marketing this event, one that was a smashing success. Members of the excited, nostalgia-driven crowd included mother and daughter duo, Leah and Lily Haltermann. Leah Haltermann is a homeschool parent and realtor, and a die-hard Kenworthy fan. “We’ve seen it before, so it’s not the first time for either of us, but obviously on the big screen, it’s a very cool, different experience,” Leah Haltermann said. “I watched it when it came out [when] I was in high school.” Leah Haltermann has implemented this film in her curriculum, showing her daughter Lily the film before they read “Taming of the Shrew” next semester. Outside of the fashions, music and questionable school attendance that hallmarks 90s teen movies, “10 Things I Hate About You” was released on the tail end of a Shakespeare boom in cinema. Between 1989 and 2001, there were three separate versions of Hamlet put to the silver screen. These films include the Kenneth Branagh canon of Shakespeare films, the DiCaprio/Danes campy recreation of Romeo and Juliet, and the iconic “10 Things I Hate About You.” “This is a modern take on Taming of the Shrew. I thought we had to come see it,” Haltermann said. In addition to the educational pursuits of the Haltermanns, teen rom-coms are always conducive to date nights. Mariah Delgado and Dallas Davenport, U of I alumni and Moscow residents, were among the couples who made the pilgrimage to the Kenworthy on a rainy Sunday night. “It’s our date night tonight,” Delgado said. “I know that [Davenport] loves the movie so I thought we had to come see it.” Delgado and Davenport were not quite old enough to have seen the film’s theatrical release in 1999, but the fashions of the era still haunt them. “I remember those weird plaid shorts, the styrofoam cup pattern-the 2000’s were a weird time,” Davenport said. “10 Things I Hate About You” is reflective of the transitional period between the 90s and the 2000s. The climax of the film takes place at prom with the theme “Blasting into 2000.” The poster advertising the event is ripped from its prominent display at the entrance of the school by main character Kat Stratford in the first 2 minutes of the movie. The spitefully torn poster instantly introduces the audience to the “Shrew.” The film’s fixation on these teen troupes under the umbrella of Shakespeare shows that the teen film has been reproduced throughout history, from Elizabethan England to the modern age. Not only have audiences throughout the centuries been engaged by its interpersonal dramas, but they can also find characters they relate to in the film. The film captivates viewers with its soundtrack, outfits and the iconic seaside Stadium High school located in Tacoma, Washington. “I love it. It’s such a weird, funny movie,” Dubach said. “It’s so good, it’ll always be a classic.” Seeing the characters Dubach, Haltermann and Delgado grew up with on the silver screen was an achievement, made possible by the semester-long efforts of ComStrat 485 students and the Palouse institution that is the Kenworthy Performing Arts Center. “The Kenworthy is such a gem in our community,” Haltermann said. Their commitment to the community and their noncommercialization draws locals into show after show. Haltermann has taken her daughters to see cult classics like “The Matrix,” and Delgado and Davenport have recently seen “The Green Knight.” Week after week, film geeks, date-nights, families and college students with a few extra bucks queue under the red and green marquis, drawn in by the intoxicating smell of popcorn and the hope to get lost in a story, even if only for an hour and a half.
https://dailyevergreen.com/193062/life/comstrat-485-students-help-kenworthy-theater-party-like-its-1999-with-10-things-i-hate-about-you-screening/
ComStrat 485 students help Kenworthy Theater party like its 1999 with “10 Things I Hate About You” screening
