Photo Credit: Jared Taylor[/caption]Members of the Improvicons, an OHS improv troupe created near the end of fall in 2013, have big plans for next year. Run by theatre teacher Jared Taylor and captained by senior Anastasia Zitko, the troupe hopes to become bigger and perform more shows. Currently, it has performed at a Peace Club concert and PTSO variety show. It plans to perform at the theatre awards night as well.
Taylor summarized what members of the troupe do as “[trying] to create funny circumstances off the top of their head.” Improv, or improvisation, is the art of acting without having a script or lines. Improv actors bounce off each other to establish scenes, working together to make a plotline make sense.
The name of the Improvicons is based off of the Decepticons in the Transformers universe. The logo, a mask, is a modified version of the Decepticon mask.
The troupe practices every Friday afternoon in the theatre room. Members play two types of games to hone their skills -- short-form games and long-form games. Short-form games, the type used when they perform at events, let the audience interact more with the performers and shorten the length of the improv pieces. An example of a short-form game is the dating game, where actors pretending to be contestants in a dating game are given personalities or qualities, then another actor (the bachelor or bachelorette) asks questions in order to guess who they are. Long-form games let actors stay in character for longer periods of time, forcing them to improvise constantly. An example of a long-form game is Armando Diaz, where actors try to tell stories and keep elements of the stories consistent.
Zitko said that being captain means she is “kind of like the leader of the group.” She has no “special authority,” but is a “leader figure.” She helps organize events and plan activities. She joined the troupe “as soon as I knew there was going to be a new group in theatre” so she could improve her improvisation skills. She became leader after a vote.
Taylor created the Improvicons in order to “have a different sort of theatre group” and “to reach a different group of people.” Members auditioned near the end of November. He compared auditions to “auditioning for a play,” because current members will have to audition again to be members next year. He hopes that SMART Lunch will be approved because it will be “a lot better for” the troupe and it can “do shows during that time.”
Jay Huskins, a junior on the troupe, said he decided to join because “I always enjoy doing improv in class. I thought it would be really fun with a concentrated group.” Also, some of his friends were auditioning. He “would encourage people to go and see” the troupe, and said that “we’re planning to have a lot of the kinks worked out by next year.” He appreciates being in the troupe because it is “another way to get to know some of the people I already should have been friends with.” Learning improvisational skills has helped him outside of the troupe because it “keeps you quick on your feet.”
Luke Taylor, another junior and member of the troupe, echoed Huskins’ sentiments. He stated, “I’m pretty close to everyone that’s on improv. We’ve kind of become… a family. It won’t be the same next year. We’re going to lose a few, we probably won’t get the same group.” His favorite improv game is the dating game, because the audience likes it and “it’s more consistently funny than most of the games.” He is “really excited about Improvicons’ production next year.”
Zitko said she hopes, after she leaves, that “this group [can] keep improving and having more ideas... I just hope that kind of legacy can continue.”
Photo credit: Mia Frenduto and Hannah Phillips[/caption]Zombie Prom may star a dead character, but the show itself is quite the opposite. It’s lively and fun, and it reveals a never-before-seen side of many actors who are regulars on the OHS stage. For example, junior Luke Taylor, a staple in the Orange theatre program, is secretly an accomplished singer with a rich, deep voice. OHS Assistant Principal Will Okun has a voice-over cameo as a television announcer, and other teachers have roles on stage. Giving teachers a chance to act with students is a new idea that worked out successfully. Taylor hopes to give more teachers roles in upcoming plays. The performances are Friday at 7 pm, Saturday at 2 and 7 pm, and Sunday at 2 pm in the auditorium. Tickets are $10.
The story follows the love story of Jonny Warner (Caleb Tolin) and Toffee (Anastasia Zitko). Jonny is an orphan who enrolls at Enrico Fermi High School, a school focused on nuclear power since it’s close to a plant. He is immediately targeted by the principal, Delilah Strict (Nunna Noe) for wearing a jacket with his name on it that’s missing the “h” often found in his name. He meets Toffee, falls in love, and the rest is history.
A few months later, the story picks up again. Toffee’s parents, played by teachers Alia Granger and Robert Griffin, tell her not to date Jonny. Under pressure, she breaks up with him and he kills himself by jumping into the nuclear waste dump near the school. Toffee is extremely upset that he’s dead, and after three weeks of mourning her friends start telling her to move on and find another date. The senior prom is coming up, and everyone but her is obsessed with it.
She doesn’t want to move on yet, however, and wishes that Jonny could come back. Her wish comes true one day, when Jonny pops out of the ground in front of her and tells her he came back from the dead because he heard her call out to him. Confused and upset, she rejects him, and he urges her to reconsider. Jonny also attempts to return to the school, but Strict won’t let him because she doesn’t want a zombie bringing disorder to her highly-regarded facility.
A secondary love story, that is tied to the first in a startling way revealed in the play’s final moments, stars Strict and Expose editor Eddie Flagrante (Luke Taylor). Eddie is a journalist who will do anything to get a story, and he jumps at the chance to cover Jonny’s struggles as a zombie. When he meets Strict, he realizes that she’s a former lover from high school. Both Taylor and Noe give standout performances, and their characters are two of the best characters in the play.
Noe described her character as the “zany, loud, tyrannical dictator of her school” who is “in charge” and “tells it like it is, or at least how she thinks it is.” She said Strict and Eddie have a “complicated” relationship. Taylor said that Eddie is a “flagrant” editor whose “main purpose at the start of the show is to get his stories.”
Director Jared Taylor thought Friday’s performance went “really, really well,” although the “first night always has its share of hiccups.” One of those hiccups were some mic problems that mainly affected Zitko. Lights and sound operator Jay Huskins said that “we will rectify any mistakes” for the Saturday and Sunday shows. Other technical aspects were brilliant, especially the lighting, and the sound problems were fixed by the second half of the show. Tolin said that “people should come to see the tech. The lighting for this show is so cool. There were thousands of dollars spent on the equipment that we are using and it shows.” Noe thought the first show was “amazing” and Assistant Director Maggie Cummings said that she believes “Nunna and Luke are two of the best characters in the entire show.” OHS alumna Katherine Kirkman called the show “very good.”
Taylor was “super excited” about the teacher involvement and he also emphasized that many aspects of the show were run by students, including the band, lights, sound, and make-up. Along with the aforementioned teacher cameos, English teacher Ashley Benners appeared as Sheila, a secretary.
Teachers and faculty had a variety of responses when asked what their favorite dish was. Answers ranged from brussel sprouts to creamed corn to herb turkey. Some dishes served at the lunch were salads, turkeys, cakes, pies, bread, and vegetables.
Angela Baldwin, the cafeteria manager, designed a fruit sculpture that was placed on the dessert table. It contained cantaloupe shells, strawberries, grapes, and various other fruits and leafy vegetables. A sign on the front of the sculpture read, “Thankful for you.” She explained that she designed the sculpture because “I love to be creative.”
Shea Mustian, the OHS media specialist, said that teachers decided to have the lunch in the library because it was a “good spot” that could accommodate everyone. She explained that “all the teachers brought sides.”
Some teachers sheepishly said that that wasn’t true. When asked what he brought, one teacher who wished to remain anonymous replied, “Um, nothing. I can’t cook.” Meredith Connor, an English teacher, said that she brought “mini cheesecakes from Food Lion” that weren’t as good as she hoped they were going to be.
However, many teachers brought in homemade dishes that they put a lot of time into. Brooke Smith, a yearbook and journalism teacher, brought in homemade creamed corn. Justin Webb, a social studies teacher, cooked string bean casserole.
Teachers, like students, are going many places for Thanksgiving. Connor is visiting family in Advance, NC. Webb is heading to Delaware to be with his wife’s family. Jared Taylor, who teaches theatre, said that he is going home to “eat as much as I can,” then “get up at 6 am to go shopping,” with his family.
Food that was not eaten or brought home was served again Friday.
Photo credit: Hannah Phillips[/caption]Dracula, the OHS theatre department’s latest offering, is incredible. Not only is the acting great, with some stand-out performances by minor characters, but the sets may be the most intricately designed of any OHS production. The show was performed on October 31 at 7 pm, November 1 at 4:45 pm, November 2 at 7 pm, and November 3 at 2 pm in the auditorium.
The Bram Stoker novel was adapted for stage by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston. The script, written in 1924, has stood the test of time. It is still as chilling as it was nearly a century ago. The brilliant acting by OHS students is probably a major reason why the play was so good. Jonathan Harker (Robert Piscitelli), Dr. Seward (Maggie Cummings), Lucy Seward (Erin Burgner), and Abraham Van Helsing (Luke Taylor) are the characters with the most screentime. The actors portray the serious characters well. Count Dracula (Taylor McNeill), the title character, gets slightly less screentime. McNeill gives Dracula a thick accent so people in the audience might have trouble understanding his lines, but his acting is creepy enough that it rarely matters.
Audience members will probably leave the auditorium remembering some of the minor characters, however. From the ever-vigilant maid Miss Wells (Sydney DeFranco), who even cleans the stage during intermission, to the insane patient R.M. Renfield (Nicky Vassello), the actors’ performances are perfect. Some of the loudest laughs came when Miss Bitters (Sarah Leverette) and Buttersworth (Aaron Summey) were on stage.
Dracula starts with Van Helsing arriving at a sanitorium. Dr. Seward needs his help diagnosing Lucy Seward, her daughter. Van Helsing quickly realizes that Lucy doesn’t have anemia, like her mother suggests at first, but something much more deadly. He mentions that she may have been bitten by a vampire, because that is the only thing that could cause all of her symptoms, and she and Harker don’t believe him. They are both convinced after he explains more about vampires, and they decide to kill the vampire who is feeding on Lucy.
The sets are beautifully designed. From the photos on the mantlepiece to the coffin Count Dracula sleeps in, it’s obvious that director Jared Taylor and the rest of the crew put a lot of thought and time into their work. Taylor gave the Den Echoes a behind-the-scenes look at the set, pointing out a few highlights. Audience members may have noticed a photo on the mantlepiece of Mina, the woman Dracula fed on before Lucy. This was actually a picture of Lucy from Dracula, the movie released in 1931. Taylor mentioned in his director’s notes that he was “watching the 1931 Bela Lugosi Dracula film for the first time” when he first became interested in horror films.
Some other points of interest that people may not have noticed from the audience are that most of the books on the bookcase are collections of high school plays, the angel statue above the entrance to the sanitorium is a reference to the weeping angels in Doctor Who, and one of the paintings on the wall was also in one of the Twilight films. Taylor said that the sets took two weeks to build, and students in all of his classes helped make it.
Lastly, people who saw Dracula probably remember the blood-curdling scream near the end of the second act. Vassello, playing R.M. Renfield, produced this ear-splitting noise. “We were all honestly scared,” Cummings remarked. Depending on what day people came to the show, the scream may have been just slightly deafening or completely deafening. This is thanks to Jay Huskins, one of the managers working in the tech booth. He decided not to mute Vassello’s mic on Saturday and Sunday to scare audience members more. That scream was probably the most memorable part of a very interesting, scary play. DeFranco said that the cast “put a lot of hard work into [the play], and I think it paid off.” Sarah Oechsle, who came to see the play multiple times, commented, “It was [darn] good.” Both statements are completely correct.
Update 5/14: The performance raised $81 in donations. The drama department and creative writing class each received half of the profit. The drama department will use the money to pay for the 2013-2014 play productions, and the Creative Writing class will use the money to pay for their anthologies.
Original Story: Four student-written and student-directed plays will be presented on May 13 at 6:00 pm in the OHS auditorium. Admission is free, but there’s a suggested donation of $5. The performance is called Epic Episodes, and proceeds will go to the creative writing and theatre classes. The plays were written by Creative Writing II students and directed by students in Theatre IV. Actors and actresses in the plays are from Theatre III and Theatre IV.
The first play, Not My Cup of Tea, was written by Maggie Cummings, Haylee Burton, and Aly Cavedo. “I think [the fact that students are performing my play] is kind of cool. Plays are a lot harder to write,” said Cummings.
Not My Cup of Tea features two brothers, Emmett (Zane Davie) and Blake (Dylan Perry), who both have strokes of good luck after drinking from cups of tea. Lauren Asbury, Paige Wilcox, and Damien Thomas play smaller roles. William Adams directed the play.
Adams said that he has a “laid back” directing style. “I let them read through it... then I do blocking. [I] let them do what they need to do.” Adams believes in “actor’s freedom.” The slogan Adams created for the play is, “Two brothers come to a seemingly unimportant choice in life, but it changes everything.”
The second play, The Choices We Make, was written by Alexis Prebula, Brittany Hester, and Katelyn Baity. Abby Peel is the play’s director. The play stars Nycol Lyons and Wilcox. Many other people in the class are extras. Some male names in the play were changed because the Theatre III and IV classes have few male actors, but Prebula said that “there’s no problem with that.” “I don’t care,” Baity added.
The play is about a girl named Melanie (Wilcox) who is bullied by a group of students. One student, Brianna (Lyons), defends her against the bullies, but after an unexpected event occurs, Melanie is left with no friends.
Peel said, “Directing a play to me is like when you know your house and you get up in the middle of the night to get ice cream... and you walk into a coffee table. It’s a learning experience and I’m excited that I’m learning.” She called directing “unnerving.” Her directing style is “learn[ing] as you go.” Asked to summarize her play in one sentence, Peel said, “Bullying is bad.”
The third play is A Crescendo of Dreams. It was directed by Perry and written by Tyler Blalock, Paul Fox, and Tiffany Connolly. The stars are Peel, Davie, Adams, and Asbury.
Fox was “a little worried” about seeing his play be performed on stage. “I think it [requires] a great deal of courage. It’s a great endeavour on both sides.”
A Crescendo of Dreams is about a group of patients in a hospital who share a lucid dream each night. In the dream, all of their injuries and disabilities are healed.
Perry said that he is “very excited to direct,” and his directing style is “listen[ing] to what my actors think is best.” Asked to preview the play, he said, “Akin to the style of Inception, A Crescendo of Dreams is a dramatic piece full of plot twists that keeps you thinking.”
The final play being performed is Solaramic. It was directed by Davie and written by Beth Bryan, Meleah Travis, and Maddie Norwood. Solaramic stars Perry, Asbury, and Amber Keller.
Travis said, “I’m excited [to see] how they portray the play. I just want to see the changes they made.”
The play is about two businesspeople, Lauren (Asbury) and Matt (Perry), who meet on a subway and become friends, then discover a dark secret that might tear their friendship apart. A businesswoman (Keller) appears in scenes to provide comedic relief.
Davie did not know what type of directing style he has because “this is my first time directing... I’m going to try to be as laid back as I can.” Asked to write a slogan for his play, he said, “My play is about enemies becoming friends.”
They will depart from the Raleigh-Durham International Airport on American Airlines Flight 174 at 6:45 pm EST, and will arrive in London at approximately 6:55 am BST. EF Tours is organizing the trip, and Richard Polley is the theatre group’s tour guide.
Jamie Gorski, a former CWS English teacher and play director, planned the field trip. He spoke at a meeting for students and parents going to London on March 21, giving detailed information about the itinerary for the trip.
On April 2, students and parents will arrive at Flight 174’s terminal by 3:45 pm EST, and the flight will leave a few hours later. The plane trip will last seven hours, and the plane will land at 6:55 am BST on April 3. The theatre group will visit Platform 9 ¾, a destination made famous by the Harry Potter book series, and take a walking tour of London.
The next day, April 4, the group will go to Westminster Abbey and participate in a theatre workshop. They will attend a matinee performance of a play at the West End, but Gorski is not sure what the play will be.
On April 5, group members will tour London again, see the Tower of London, have tea, go to the British Museum, and see another play.
April 6 is the group’s last full day in London. They will have a free day, where groups of students and parents can do a variety of activities, then they will watch a third play.
On April 7, they will leave London on American Airlines Flight 173 at 11 am BST from the Heathrow Airport, and they will arrive in the Raleigh-Durham International Airport at 2:45 pm EST.
Gorski had a morbid outlook on the trip, stating, “I hope we don’t die.” Jared Taylor, the OHS theatre teacher, said, “Last time I was [in London] my entire focus was on Shakespeare. I can’t wait to go back and see more modern stuff.”
Maggie Cummings, a sophomore, said the trip will be “cold but exciting.” Sarah Oechsle, also a sophomore, called it “exuberating.”
Anne Purcell, CWS principal, said that she is “very excited for our students to be able to experience this trip.” She is going on the trip herself, and she stated, “I have never been, so I’m looking forward to all the sights and experiences I have read about... It’s a wonderful opportunity.”
The play, The Taming of the Shrew, is being performed from Thursday, March 14, to Saturday, March 16, in the auditorium. Tickets cost $6 for students and $8 for adults. The Taming of the Shrew is a comedic play-within-a-play. Christopher Sly (Ben Wirzba) drunkenly runs into the auditorium during Taylor’s opening speech. Maggie Cummings and Molly Burke, the assistant director and assistant stage manager, chase him on stage. They yell that he needs to pay for his ticket and walk away, then he makes a joke about a baseball hitting him in the head and collapses. The audience realizes that this is part of the play when the ensemble cast members come on stage and interact with Christopher. A lord (Sarah Leverette) decides to trick Christopher into thinking he’s a lord. She gets her men to dress him in fancy clothes and tell him he went insane fifteen years ago, forgetting his true upbringing.
Christopher accepts the idea that he’s a lord and meets his wife (Quinlan Blackmon). His wife is actually a boy wearing a dress. Blackmon is hilarious in his role, and he was my favorite character in the introduction. The men pretending to serve Christopher put on a play for him about two daughters, Katherine and Bianca.The play-within-a-play is where most of the story takes place. Katherine (Abby Peel) is a bratty, selfish woman who doesn’t want to wed anyone. Bianca (Morgan McCallum), her sister, is a kind, gentle woman who has many suitors. Their father, Baptista (Magaly Asuncion), will not let Bianca marry until Katherine has married. This creates a problem for her suitors, and when Lucentio (Jay Huskins), a student arriving in town to take classes at a local university, becomes infatuated with Bianca, this complicates matters even further. Lucentio, Hortensio (Nicky Vassello), and Gremio (Will Adams) all try to win the affections of Bianca. Petruchio (Luke Taylor) decides to “tame” Katherine and marries her.
Peel is amazing as Katherine. She’s the loudest person in the cast, and she plays Katherine as a rude and insensitive character. As Katherine changes over the course of the play, Peel gradually makes Katherine become more likeable. Katherine was my favorite character and I thought Peel was a perfect fit for her role.
Grumio (Anastasia Zitko) entertains audience members with physical comedy and side-splitting one-liners. Grumio is Petruchio’s servant, and he often interrupts scenes by dropping a metal basket onto the stage. He also smashes a pie into his face once and eats large quantities of food.
The play’s set is “one of our most ambitious sets to date,” according to Jared Taylor. The effort the crew put into the set shows. There is
a ramp in front of the stage and a set of stairs leads to a high platform on stage left. Taylor projected images of fields and hills on to the cyclorama behind the stage, which complements the set nicely.
There were a few noticeable mistakes in the play. A few actors repeatedly forgot their lines, creating awkward silences that other actorshad to fill. The mics glitched at least ten times, and audience members heard loud crackling noises come through the speakers. A couple of people spoke quietly and didn’t have mics, so their lines were hard to hear. Otherwise, the acting was spot on and the play was almost flawless.
Cast members and people in the audience thought Thursday’s show was great. Alia Riley, a sophomore who watched the play, called it “absolutely hilarious.” Luke Taylor thought it was “awesome,” and Jared Taylor said it went “well. [There was] plenty of laughter.” Lauren Asbury, who plays Vincentio, called the night’s performance “phenomenal.” Vassello stated that he hopes “the rest of the nights go as smoothly as [Thursday night’s show].”
I loved The Taming of the Shrew. I’d recommend that anyone who has a free night Friday or Saturday see this play. It is Shakespeare, but that doesn’t mean that it’s confusing or boring. This cast proves that Shakespeare can be exactly the opposite- clear and fun.
The OHS theatre group has been memorizing lines, setting the stage, making costumes, and much more these last few months. Jared Taylor, the theatre director, has worked hard to make sure this show has the perfect cast. The play contains thirteen main parts with seven helping parts.
Lucentio has two helpful servants that aid him throughout the play named Tranio (Rob Piscitelli) and Biondello (Meghan O’Shaughnessy). Petruchio (Luke Taylor) with his sidekick Grumio (Anastasia Zitko) enter at the end of the first act and Petruchio becomes a suitor of Katherine. Later, Lucentio’s father and not-so-real father enter to further complicate things. Vincentio is played by Lauren Asbury and fake Vincentio is played by Justin Fox. There are also six servants who appear throughout the play portrayed by Devon Allen, Kelsey Andrews, Sarah Leverette, Nycol Lyons, Hannah Phillips, and Indy Reid-Shaw.
Throughout the play there are many puns and examples of dramatic irony. Men are dressed as women and women are dressed as men. This entertaining play is meant to draw many laughs from the audience. The play runs from March 14 to 16 at 7 pm. Tickets are $6 for students and $8 for adults.
While many people at OHS traveled all over North Carolina during the summer, Jared Taylor, the OHS drama teacher, went all the way to London, England, to take classes at the Globe Theater. While he was there, he explored the city as well as the countryside of neighboring Scotland. While he was excited about traveling, the journey wasn't exactly quick. “It was about a 7 or 8 hour flight there but there’s a 5 hour time change from leaving Boston to London,” Taylor said. However, the rewards were great. “The classes lasted, altogether, a total of three and a half weeks,” he said.
He enjoyed the tourist spots in London, where he saw all the attractions from Big Ben to the Buckingham Palace and the switching of the front guards, and he liked being able to see the Globe Theater and perform on the stage. “Actually getting to perform on the Globe Theater stage, as a performer, was the most enjoyable moment while being there,” Taylor says when asked what he had enjoyed the most about his trip.
The Globe Theater was owned by actors in 1599 and was rebuilt after it was burnt down in a fire in
June 1613. The design of the Globe Theater is combined with practical use and economy. William Shakespeare and other performers at that time used the Globe Theater before it was burnt down. The history of the theater attracts many performers to the stage each year. Taylor also went to Scotland and enjoyed seeing those sights. Overall Taylor says, “I enjoyed the trip a lot.” Next summer there is no telling where he will go or what he will see to make the summer more fun.
pm, is startlingly moving and thought-provoking. It only lasts approximately 45 minutes, but it contains so much emotion and substance that audience members will not realize it was so short. I am not ashamed to admit that I shed a few tears watching this play, so emotion-sensitive viewers may want to bring a couple of tissues. While not explicitly violent, the nature of some of scenes are overwhelming, and as such, I would recommend that children who are elementary school age or younger not see it.I have to confess that I was not sure if I would enjoy this play before I saw it. I figured that a free play meant to combat school bullying would not be one of OHS’s best productions.
I was completely wrong.
From its confusing beginning to its horrifying ending, this play is different than anything that has been performed at OHS in years, if not decades. This is obvious in the play’s first scene. A boy named Josh (Robert Piscitelli) talks to Emily, Katie, Michael, Mattie, and Jesse, five students he killed (Anastasia Zitko, Sydney Defranco, Caleb Tolin, Maggie Cummings, and Lauren Asbury, respectively). They ask why he killed them, and he casually tells each of them why. One person was in the “wrong place at the wrong time.” Another had to die at some point, so he said she “might as well get it over with, right?” The six students then describe what holding a gun feels like, and how it empowers people.
One of the most unusual aspects about this play is that it does not follow a strict timeline. It starts out with Josh talking to the victims of the shooting, then jumps to Josh convincing his parents to let him buy a rifle when he was a child. Throughout the play, the ghosts of the teenagers that Josh killed often jump into the scene to comment on what’s happening or how the shooting has affected Josh’s life. The names of four school shootings- Jonesboro, Springfield, Paducah, and Columbine- are repeated many times during the play. Another phrase that is repeated multiple times in the play is, “So you make your face a mask. A mask that hides your face. A face that hides the pain. A pain that eats your heart. A heart nobody knows.” This is one of my favorite lines from the play because it shows how deep and powerful the play is.
Because the play does not follow a distinct timeline, it does not have a distinct ending. My only criticism of the play is that the ending is uneventful. It is just as strong as the rest of the play, so it is very powerful and interesting, but it does not stand out from the end of other scenes. If the end was not followed by a curtain call, I would not have known that the play was over.
Maggie Cummings said that the premiere of the play “went fine” and that people should come to see it because it is very “enlightening.”
Anastasia Zitko agreed, stating that it was “pretty good,” and people should come because it is “very emotional.” Mr. Taylor, the Director of the play and the theatre teacher, thought that there were a “few hiccups,” but there are “always a few hiccups on opening night.” He said that the “message is so important” and that the play is “powerful.”
I could not agree more with all of these statements. The play was emotional, moving, and heartbreaking. It made me think about violence and school shootings, and it reminded me how easily lives can end. The play is less than an hour long, and there is no price for admission, so anyone who is free Friday or Saturday night should come see it.