In Englewood High School’s latest theater production, the drama unfolds both onstage and off as a play about a play spirals non-stop and is hilariously out of control.
“The One-Act Play Disaster” was written by Don Zolidis and directed by student Spade Barnes.
Senior Joe Carter has been part of the theater scene at Englewood High School since middle school, “Seven years. Back when middle school and high school were combined I did my first show. The play was, “Fiddler on the Roof.”
Carter, who played the mastermind lead, reflected on the chaotic yet charming production, “It’s just such a great community. It’s really enjoyable. I just love the art of being able to be someone you’re not, but like, in the same way, being yourself.”
After the final curtain call, Carter was still excited about the process, “The play we just did was a lot of fun, because different from most plays, it’s a play about a play, and not just a play about a play, but a play about a play that goes wrong. So it’s a lot of fun to purposely have a show that messes up, but every mistake you made was planned, it was a lot of fun to do something intentionally wrong, and it was, I thought it was really funny because of that.”
A snowstorm pushed opening night back, but the play still had a large audience, “We got a pretty good audience on Saturday, which was surprising, especially with our opening night being canceled because of the snowstorm. We still got some people on Sunday, which was great. It was a great turnout.”
Theater director and school psychologist Patrick Maschka really enjoyed the entire process, “This was a short play which had a lot of comedy, and it was connected to a really popular old movie, but it was really fun to watch. I like that It’s a play within a play It’s the story of a high school theater troupe trying to put on a play, and everything goes wrong. So lots of laughs, lots of destruction, and lots of comedy.”
Sophomore Savannah Adams took on the role of Rondo, the smooth-talking con artist, “It was enjoyable. Most of the people were fun to work with. There were a few things that were cool and I enjoyed a lot. One thing I enjoyed about the play was maybe Everything falling apart and breaking things was probably one of the funniest things to do. it’s always been a shock what’s gonna happen even if you’re supposed to do it fake, it was just really fun to act in and be a part of.”
Guard number 1 was played by Sam Hamilton who through his internship at the school, decided to take part and act in the School Play.
The theater department usually performs three plays for the year. The next one is the winter musical, “So pretty soon after Thanksgiving break, we’re having auditions for our musical, “You’re a good man. Charlie Brown.” Auditions will be on December 16th with callbacks on the 17th. Audition we’d love anyone to join,” Carter said.
