“Just Another High School Play” at SSHS starts Saturday

The Soda Springs drama department is staging a production of “Just Another High School Play,” which will run Saturday the 28th and Monday the 30th at 7:00 p.m. at the SSHS Auditorium.

The play is a humorous exploration of theatre through the ages, and involves improv.  

The play opens with a musical number that sets the leitmotifs into place, with “We Apologize in Advance”—a scripted song that apologizes for the improv nature of the play. As you might imagine, the play contains a lot of fourth-wall breaking and tongue in cheek observations about the world of the theater – or “theatre” in this case – as well as history, politics, and a range of other topics.  

It's also rich with humor and catchy tunes, so don't miss out!

It takes walking a fine line to create a sense of spontaneity in a play that is mostly scripted, but at the early rehearsal we were able to sit in on, the parts were falling into place nicely.  The run-through gave director Kimberly Mumford a chance to fine-tune the blocking, lighting, and sound with the production crew, and speak with the actors about their scenes as they tackled them.  

Rehearsing for a production is an extensive and intensive process, especially since several of the actors are also involved in other school activities that require a delicate scheduling process in order to bring the whole group together.

During the course of the play, a number of theater genres are explained and parodied, including tragedy, melodrama, realism, surrealism, and more.  Conventions in the theater, like improv and men playing women’s roles for laughs, are also targets of the humor.  

The play is essentially a series of vignettes, which are connected by the characters of two narrators that introduce the segments.  The cast rotates through the various scenes, giving  the actors a chance to employ a variety of tones and approaches to the sketches.

In addition to the demands that come along with memorizing the words, timing, and blocking of the dialogic elements, the play is primarily a musical, and therefore also requires the actors to memorize the melodies and phrasing of the many musical numbers.  

Spring is a great time around the valley for musicals, and put “Just Another High School Play” on you calendar for Saturday, Monday, or both for an entertaining night!