From “Little Women” to Alice in Wonderland,” The Seward High School Theatre Collective has brought plays back to the coastal Kenai Peninsula town after the COVID-19 pandemic ended the high school's drama program. This time, the collective is kicking off the fall season with “Clue: On Stage.”
The stage adaptation by Sandy Rustin is a take on the board game and 1985 film. It follows classic “Clue” characters as they solve a murder mystery during a dinner party gone wrong.
Seward High School senior Angel Wagner stars as Wadsworth, a butler who solves the mystery with the other six characters. This is her third play with the collective. Wagner said she’s had a good time with the different direction it takes from their previous productions.
“I really enjoyed that we did a comedy play because ‘Little Women’ was a little heavy emotionally, and then ‘Alice in Wonderland’ was very fun and whimsical,” she said, “but ‘Clue’ is entirely comedy, even though it's got a lot of heavy subjects in it. And I really like that about this play.”
Wagner said it can be challenging to understand the heavier topics and jokes, but she’s looking forward to seeing how people react to the performance.
“There's a lot of jokes in here that were just like, ‘huh? I don't know what that means,’ but it's fine,” she said, “but once you get the joke, it's nice. The most rewarding part is going to be seeing the audience's faces, like, light up with laughter, because it's a funny play.”
Senior Liberty Hart, who uses she and they pronouns, is the stage manager. They oversee props and set changes during the show. She said it’s really hard to manage all of the changes, but that it’s rewarding when things work out well.
“The other day, we were practicing a transition, and they were on stage doing their thing, and we have to go out and put it on stage while they're talking in a scene, and they didn't notice us put out the set at all because we did it so quickly and so smoothly, and it was just like, amazing to get that done that way,” she said.
From middle schoolers to adults, just under 40 people have been working on the production since September.
Wagner said as an older cast member, these productions give her a chance to guide the younger members.
“The fact that we get that chance to be like, ‘Hey, don't do that’ or ‘do this instead, it's the better option,’ or just being that leadership role that they could look up to throughout the play, it's nice,” Wagner said.
Hart said it isn’t without its challenges though.
“It can also be frustrating at times, because then it's like, ‘yeah, you need to do this at this time.’ And they're like, ‘Oh, but I want to go, like, get a drink real quick.’ And it's like, ‘but you're on right now you need to do this at this second. You can't, like, go and do this,’ they said, “but it can be fun at times. They definitely liven up the place.”
Wagner’s grateful for the effort people have put in the final stretch before opening night.
“Everyone's so tired, but is also so excited to finally present it to the public,” Wagner said.
“Oh yeah. It’ll be fun for sure,” Hart added.
Opening night is Nov. 8 at the Seward High School Auditorium. It’ll run from Friday to Sunday for two weekends. Tickets and dates can be found on the theatre collective’s website.
