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.
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.”