The month of November is normally a time when high school theater students get to show off their acting and performance skills to the general public, and this year’s local productions bring various stories of humor, tragedy and love.
For theater teacher Bernie DeLeo’s final production at Marshall High School, the theater company will be performing “The Laramie Project,” a somber production about the community response and reaction to the murder of Matthew Shephard 25 years ago due to his sexual orientation.
“For my final play, I wanted to do something that had some lasting value,” DeLeo said. “I have been growing more and more frustrated and incensed over the LGBTQ erasure that’s been happening across the country in a lot of red states.”
“The Laramie Project” is a “docu-drama,” with DeLeo saying the cast will portray characters based on the hundreds of interviews conducted by the original playwrights with townspeople where the murder took place, published news reports and more. The play will take place from Thursday through Saturday, November 9 — 11.
“This play is very enlightening and educating our viewers about a tragedy,” DeLeo said. “If there are students or young people who don’t know about this, I think it’s really important that they try and come see [the play] if they can.”
The well-known love story “Beauty and the Beast” is Justice High School’s fall theater production, with cast members Nora Abbas and Habib Kamara saying that the classic fairytale was chosen due to it being a “family-community show” and a way for the theater company to bring the community together.
Showing on Thursday, November 9 through Saturday, November 11, Abbas said the choice of performing “Beauty and the Beast” was also a way to “return to life” after the pandemic and bring “life” back into the theater program.
“[Audiences] can expect a lot of magic and fun,” Abbas said. “No matter what age or demographic you’re a part of, you will look at the show and be like ‘Wow, everyone’s having so much fun.’”
McLean High School’s theater company will be performing a unique show called “Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play,” a dark comedy about six apocalypse survivors trying to remember a classic Simpsons episode. The show was chosen by McLean’s theater arts teacher and director Phillip Reid after seeing a production of it at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company in D.C.
“I really wanted to try my hand and direct the show,” Reid said. “The show is really strange [because] it is basically a commentary on what happens to pop culture and entertainment through the years done under the scope of a traumatic experience.”
Performed on Thursday, November 16 and Saturday, November 18, Reid said audiences should expect another “true-to-form seat-on-a-plane” show in terms of telling the story in a “vibrant, pushing-the-boundaries” kind of way.
“I just like pushing the boundaries in terms of what it means to tell a story,” Reid said. “McLean prides itself in doing that.”
The theater company at Falls Church High School will be performing the classic Broadway musical “Annie” on Thursday, November 16th through Sunday, November 19th. The story provides a “hope for tomorrow,” as it follows an orphan living with a wealthy tycoon during the Great Depression.
“‘Annie’ is one of those shows that has a large ensemble and the ensemble has to be strong,” the high school’s theater arts director Elizabeth DeMarco said. “It lends itself to recruiting freshmen and sophomores into those roles, and then those existing students who have really grown in their talent could fill the lead roles.”
A few highlights with this year’s production include the hiring of a professional dog named Whimsy Cheddar who is taking on the role of Annie’s beloved pooch Sandy, as well as the talents of student assistant director McKenna Cobb, who DeMarco said has shown amazing “observational skills and the ability to see and give direction.”
“We are an open community and we’re just hoping that this is going to be a wonderful evening or afternoon entertainment,” DeMarco said.