After a nine month hiatus, S*T*A*G*E is back and breaking the barrier for the standard school play. For their 2022 winter production, the cast and crew will be putting on “The Twilight Zone,” inspired by a five-season show that aired in the 50s and 60s by the same name. The opening date for the production is Dec. 2 and will play again on Dec. 3, Dec. 9 and Dec. 10.
The show combines horror, sci-fi and fantasy in an anthology of stories. Each episode follows a different storyline. The play is set to portray different episodes from the series and have advertisements acted out between episodes.
The production was barriered with more than one obstacle this time around. The show was initially supposed to be put up earlier in the year, but the struggle to find a new technical director pushed back opening night a full month.
This meant tech week, the stressful week leading up to opening night when the cast rehearses nonstop, would be pushed back a month to conflict with sports awards and an APEX meeting, while simultaneously being in the same week as the county-wide power outage that resulted from a plane crashing into a central power line.
Due to these conflicts, tech week was simmered down to just two full practice days and two half days, as opposed to the usual five.
“I’m stressed. I literally had to take a walk around the school. We don’t have enough rehearsals and we did not prepare enough [due to the shortened tech week], I believe… There’s room for improvement for everything, but we open tonight,” assistant director Bryan Kibet said.
Despite the setback, the crew is excited to debut tonight and hopes everyone will enjoy it.
“[It’s amazing]. Come see what we’re about. Come see the show,” Kibet said.
