By: Erin Moore

Last weekend, Highland Park Senior High School’s Theatre department performed its first weekend of Winter One Acts: five short plays filled with humor, drama, and talent. This weekend, six brand new one acts will be performed, each just as entertaining as those performed last weekend.

Performances will be January 26th at 7pm, January 27th at 2pm, and January 27th at 7pm. As there is an additional one act, the show will likely run longer than last weekend’s two hour performance. A brief intermission in the middle will allow audience members to purchase drinks, snacks, and merchandise, all for the benefit of the school’s theatre program.

Tickets for the Winter One Acts can be paid in either cash, card, or check. They are priced at $5 for students, $10 for adults, but are free for anyone currently with Nancy Michael as a teacher.

The student-directed one acts included this weekend are: ‘Alice and her Wonderland,’ ‘Zero Sum Mind,’ ‘We are the Sea,’ An Open and Shut Case,’ ‘Bad Auditions by Bad Actors,’ and ‘Murder in the Asylum.’

‘Alice and her Wonderland,’ written and directed by Bedeline Breninger, is “a fun small play about Alice and her wild adventures in a mysterious land, where she acquires a party of people trying to help her get back home to France.” This one act takes a whimsical spin on the classic ‘Alice in Wonderland.’

‘Zero Sum Mind’ is written by Stephen Gregg and directed by Esther Anderson and Jade Gaw. When told to summarize their one act, the directors said, “If you could only remember one thing, what would it be? In a world cursed with the zero sum mind, this is the most important question.” Biz Books says, “In a post-apocalyptic world our minds only have a finite amount of space. Every time we learn one thing, we forget something else. People try desperately to NOT learn things! How it came to be like that is the key to the story.”

Elodie Cummins and Evadne Pond direct Laura Lundgren Smith’s ‘We are the Sea.’ It is summarized by Playscripts.com as follows, “Norah, Una, and Iseult set sail from Ireland to escape the ravages of hunger, only to find a new set of dangers on their ocean voyage. The so-called ‘coffin ships’ are full of illness, squalor, and grief, and the passengers can rely only on one another and their memories for comfort. When a cruel, angry sailor refuses to show them mercy, it seems like even their stories might be lost. But they don’t know that the sea that swirls around the ship is listening. The sea remembers everything. And the sea demands justice. A poetic and striking historical drama with a hypnotic ocean chorus.”

‘An Open and Shut Case’ follows intermission, directed by Kaea Andrews and Lashia Lee and written by John Mattera. “Young, handsome Harold is married to elderly, wheelchair-ridden Elizabeth because of that age-old attraction—money. So naturally, Harold plans to murder her and inherit all that glorious money. He convinces Elizabeth that he can no longer tend to the big house by himself, and she reluctantly agrees to let him hire the people he claims are so urgently needed: a nurse/companion, to tend to Elizabeth’s needs; Lisa LaRouche, a housekeeper who says she does windows and whatever else needs to be done; Inga Slayton, a cook with a flair for preparing Scandinavian dishes; and Zachary Flood, an unkempt, uncouth groundskeeper. Who-done-it? Your audience will be shocked when they finally find out the answer.” The above description was found on Dramatic Publishing.

‘Bad Auditions by Bad Actors,’ directed by Bijou Kruszka and Alex Roepke, was written by Ian McWethy (the same author as last week’s ‘Appropriate Audience Behavior’). Playscripts’ description reads as follows: “A casting director has one day to find the leads for a community theater production of ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ But what seems like a simple task proves impossible when the pool of actors includes extreme method actors, performers who just don’t know what to do with their hands, and one particular woman who may or may not think she’s a cat. This hilarious comedy will bring you to the last place you’d ever want to be…behind the doors of a casting session.”

The final one act of the evening is ‘Murder in the Asylum,’ written by James Campbell, is directed by Abby Gustafson and Owen Jahn. Off the Wall Plays says, “It’s another day at Saint Woden’s Asylum. Another day and another mysterious murder has occurred in this absurd whodunit script. The patients at the asylum are dying like flies and nobody has a clue as to who’s knocking them off. In fact, it’s driving Doctor Mario von Woden a little round the twist himself. Let me rephrase that – he’s just very, very, very stressed. He’s most stressed that even the simple task of dictating a memo for the police is a struggle. When a policeman arrives at the asylum and starts interviewing patients and staff, who then die in a number of weird and wonderful ways, Doctor von Woden’s suspicions are aroused….”

These plays have taken a lot of hard work for the cast and crew, especially given that five other one acts were performed merely a week prior and this is the final week of the first semester. The best way to show appreciation and support for their efforts is attending these performances.

If you would like to participate in Highland Park’s theatre department, contact Nancy Michael, another person you know who’s already involved in theatre, check out @hptheatrearts on Instagram, or sign up for an audition via a poster in the hallways.

The theatre department’s next show will be the spring musical, ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ Performances will be from April 18-20 and auditions will be held on February 5th and 6th. Audition posters containing a signup QR code can be found throughout the school. If you’d rather be involved in tech crew or the pit orchestra, try contacting the theatre department in one of the previously listed ways.