Stage actors have to be nimble and quick. Castmates forget lines. Props aren\u2019t where they\u2019re supposed to be. Things go wrong, but the show must go on, sometimes forcing the cast and crew to make it up on the fly. That\u2019s the crux of \u201cThe Play That Goes Wrong,\u201d onstage in Red Knight Theatre at North Fort Myers High School this weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn theater things go wrong, but this is kind of to the extreme,\u201d said Theatre Director Janelle Laux. \u201cEverything that can go wrong will go wrong, including every single wall is on the floor by the end of the show.\u201d<\/p>\n
The play is a comedy bordering on farce. That suits Laux just fine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis show really pushes the students to really get their acting skills under control,\u201d Laux said. \u201cI don’t want people to feel comfortable and safe. I want them to push themselves to be better actors.\u201d<\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
North Fort Myers High School Theatre Teacher and Director Janelle Laux getting set ready for dress rehearsal run.<\/p>\n
North Fort Myers High always assembles a strong cast of student actors. But the star of this show is the set, which self-destructs over the course of the evening.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is actually the very first set design done by my father, Tim Turco, and he took the entire set design on, learned how to make the walls fall and how to make all these special effects happen,\u201d Laux noted. \u201cThere’s a moment where everything that’s on the wall falls numerous times for the show and he had to learn how to do all that and it’s really impressive to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even funnier is watching how the actors compensate for the falling mantel piece, doors that don\u2019t open and props that go missing.<\/p>\n
Performances are Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.<\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
The crew makes an unintended grand entrance onto the stage in their effort to get the stuck door to finally open.<\/p>\n
MORE INFORMATION:<\/p>\n
It\u2019s opening night of the Cornley Drama Society\u2019s newest production, The Murder at Haversham Manor. But things are quickly going from bad to utterly disastrous. This 1920s whodunit has everything you never wanted in a show\u2014an unconscious leading lady, a corpse that can\u2019t play dead, and actors who trip over everything (including their lines). Nevertheless, the accident-prone thespians battle against all odds to make it through to their final curtain call, with hilarious consequences! Part Monty Python, part Sherlock Holmes, this Olivier Award\u2013winning comedy is a global phenomenon that\u2019s guaranteed to leave you aching with laughter.<\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
Sandra (Violet Salcedo) is distraught after finding her fiance,’ Jonathan (Jack Maxwell) dead on fainting couch at their engagement party.<\/p>\n
Laux picks the shows that North Fort Myers High will perform each season long before she knows the names, ages and acting experience of her students. That doesn\u2019t really matter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love plays because plays really push actors,\u201d said Laux. \u201cThat’s when they learn how to do things. They really get to work on their acting skills.\u201d<\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
Robert (River Reed), the inspector (Joshua Slover), Max (Caisson Dobson) and Sandra (Violet Salcedo) discover it’s not Grey Goose in their highball glasses.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe actually have two freshmen in the show this year and I have some new crew members who’ve never done crew before and so I’m kind of pushing the students, but that’s really what I like to do,\u201d Laux observed.<\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
River Reed in the role of Robert in ‘The Play That Goes Wrong.’<\/p>\n
\u201cRiver Reed\u201d plays our main character, Robert,\u201d Laux pointed out. \u201cHe’s kind of the male lead.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reed has been seen locally in numerous Southwest Florida venues including the Alliance for the Arts, Broadway Palm Dinner Theater, Cultural Park Theater, Florida Repertory Theatre, Fort Myers Theatre, Lab Theater and Melody Lane Performing Arts Center. His stage credits include Tobias for Lab Theater in \u201cSweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,\u201d Les in \u201cNewsies\u201d and \u201cMothers and Sons\u201d at Lab Theater. He has also proudly represented a Melody Lane PAC at Junior Theater Festival in Atlanta, Georgia, and Houston, Texas.<\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
‘Kiss me you fool,’ says Sandra (Violet Salcedo) to her dead fiance’s brother, Max (Caisson Dobson).<\/p>\n
\u201cRobert \u2018s best friend is Max, who is played by Cassion Dobson,\u201d Laux added. \u201cRobert’s sister is Sandra, and she\u2019s played by Violet Salcedo. And then the murder happened to Jonathan, who is played by Jack Maxwell.\u201d<\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
Did the butler (Aiden Maxfield) do it? <\/p>\n
Aiden Maxfield plays the butler and Joshua Slover doubles as the inspector who comes in to investigate the murder as well as the director of the Drama Society.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then we have students who double as actual stage crew as well as stage crew in the show. Annie is played by Sarah Salerno and Taylor is played by Chloe Abelard.\u201d
The script actually casts males in all but one role.<\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
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WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall <\/p>\n
When the mantel crashes to the floor, stagehands stand in as candleholders and a human mantelpiece. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut the script is written to allow for gender bending as needed,\u201d said Laux. \u201cFor example, the role of Taylor could also be played by a Trevor. We gender bended some other characters and kind of made it work for what we had. But we did stay true to the script minus one character that we switched into a female role.\u201d<\/p>\n
Support for WGCU\u2019s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stage actors have to be nimble and quick. Castmates forget lines. Props aren\u2019t where they\u2019re supposed to be.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-19324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}