Students will kill it on stage in more ways than one
Staff writer
Sunday was the first dress rehearsal for the high school play, “The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940,” but the intricacies of each costume were still up for discussion.
Heaps of clothes were piled stage right.
Students dressed backstage, then emerged to discuss details with director Megan Jones.
One girl complained about her bulky heels: “I’ve already tripped like three times, Megan.”
“Don’t hurt yourself,” Jones said.
“It won’t be intentional,” the girl replied.
While “Murders” is set in the 1940s, the costumes are more modern and vibrant than would be typical back then.
Colorful pants and patterned sweater-vests were “in” amongst the actors. Some of the more serious types donned fedoras, suits, and trenchcoats, but there were eccentricities to every costume.
“Oh my gosh, you look like a woman!” someone shouted backstage.
Ryker Salsbury walked on stage, indeed dressed in maid’s attire. His character, Dieter Wenzel, impersonates his twin sister, Helsa, for most of the play.
“It’s not the worst role to have,” he shrugged.
“Murders” is about a group of theater producers who struggle to find investors for their new play after it is revealed that three actors were murdered during their last show.
After the producers find funding and begin to rehearse, more bodies start to fall, and they must uncover the culprit.
“It’s kind of a similar vibe as ‘Clue,’” Jones said.
Kattie Stultz, playing a maid killed early in the show, joked that “pretending to be dead” was the hardest part of her performance.
Scene changes are non-existent, as the play takes place exclusively in the living room of financier Elsa Von Grossenknueten.
The decor is Victorian and lovingly painted by Kylie Schroeder and her art students. Two AI-generated portraits depicting Grossenknueten’s parents stand out on the wall.
In addition to the bold costumes and enigmatic plot, the play is unique for being, well, a play.
County high schools almost always put on musicals rather than plays.
Kattie Stutlz, who has acted in four musicals during her time in high school, said she couldn’t remember the last time Marion put on a play.
“Music is involved in the show, but it’s not a musical because the music doesn’t really further the plot or drive the story,” Jones said. “It’s more like garnishment on a dinner plate.”
She is excited for the different types of performance a play will bring.
“Not everybody that wants to be involved in performing arts is a musician, and this gives another vehicle for kids to be involved,” Jones said. “You can flex a lot more acting chops in a straight show than a musical.”
Another benefit of a straight show is a lighter burden for the tech booth, which can worry less about audio channels.
“It’s a lot easier to run,” sound operator Zayden Janzen said.
Janzen and Cael Dameron were the two students occupying the booth Sunday.
Dameron’s head was buried in the script, while Janzen perched himself above a complicated-looking soundboard.
“We got it last year,” Janzen said. “It’s stupid nice.”
The most pressing task for the booth was to sort out microphone levels.
Almost all of the actors wore lapel mics, which Jones said was necessary for their voices to reach the back of the Performing Arts Center.
Many of the mics were cutting in and out, though, warbling dialogue and frustrating the performers.
One actor’s mic was working only when her head was turned to the right.
“I think it’s getting tugged on,” Janzen said.
The soundboard can switch the mics on and off. One of Janzen’s duties is to silence them when the actors forget to do so themselves, which happens often.
“Sometimes they turn them off; sometimes they don’t,” he said. “We can turn them so only we can hear them, and they say some funny stuff backstage.”
Considering the students’ inexperience with straight shows, Jones has chosen an ambitious one in “Murders,” which is quite wordy.
Getting dialogue down is vital. So, too, is making sure the lines snap and the humor comes through.
“It’s pretty obvious when we’re trying to be funny,” Salsbury said. “It’s in the dialogue, and then a bit of slapstick.”
On Sunday, the actors breezed through most of their scenes flawlessly. The play is genuinely funny, although some of the humor does feel a bit dated.
“From the get-go I was impressed with their natural savvy for the rhythm of the show and how to deliver a laugh,” Jones said. “I think our biggest hang-up is just [learning] lines.”
As she did in the fall musical, “Once Upon a Mattress,” Jones has asked her students to think about the characters’ backstories. What are they like in a crisis? In a moment of levity?
“Even if it’s a character that already existed in the script, it helps you to recognize how you should react to different situations,” Jones said.
An original character, played by Alexandra Carlson and referred to as “The Pianist,” has been added to the show.
“She doesn’t speak a single word, but she makes her feelings about what’s happening clear in her musical phrasing,” Jones said.
The show takes place during World War II, and there are many references to antiquated items — phonographs, telegrams. One wonders how many of the young actors even know what Ovaltine is.
Still, everyone is getting in the mindset. Jones has shown some of the actors clips of early Hollywood legends, such as Mae West and Katharine Hepburn, to help inform their acting.
Students are pleased with how rehearsals have gone so far.
“It’s definitely come a long way from where we started,” Eldon Smith said.
Margaret Collett, whose performance as Von Grossenknueten was a highlight of the rehearsal, agreed.
“For such an old show, it’s really fun,” she said. “The humor of it still stands.”
Marion and Hillsboro are the only schools in the county putting on shows this spring. (Hillsboro’s “Quest!: One Play to Rule Them All” opens in late March.)
“It seems like fine arts and performing arts are the first thing up on the chopping block when times get tough,” Jones said. “It makes me sad, because it can really enrich an entire community.”
Dress rehearsal will be this evening. Local living centers rather than the typical elementary-school audience have been invited.
“We felt like this was a little bit of an older audience-geared show,” Jones said.
Opening night will be Thursday with a second performance Friday. Tickets are available at the door and at Bill and Essie’s BBQ.