Sigourney Weaver helps school celebrate ‘Alien’ production

NORTH BERGEN, N.J. (AP) - Sigourney Weaver helped make a New Jersey high school’s encore stage production of “Alien” a special event.

“Alien: The Play” had drawn widespread praise after videos and images of the performances at North Bergen High School were posted online.

Among those applauding the show was Weaver, who played the character Ellen Ripley in the 1979 movie that spawned a franchise, and the film’s director, Ridley Scott, who applauded the students’ creativity and the show’s elaborate sets and special effects.

Weaver had taped a YouTube video this year in which she called the production “incredible.” But she was at the school Friday to watch the encore performance herself, telling the crowd before the curtain rose that “this is the night I’ve been waiting for.”