The Rancho Cucamonga High School drama department recently announced their fall production “The Play That Goes Wrong.” The play is set to showcase in the RCHS auditorium on October 19-21, 2023.
Tickets will be sold online for $10 regular price and $7 student price. One can purchase tickets with the QR codes on posters that are hung throughout the school.
Since the play is a comedy, the participants auditioned with a comedic monologue on the fourth day of the school year. The cast had differing experiences.
“Auditions were a bit quick,” sophomore Arsham Sobbi said. “I just found a comedic monologue that I liked a lot and I just did it for him.”
While some are well-versed in the presentation of monologues, many performers take a unique approach, whether it is reading their lines over repeatedly until their muscle memory takes the lead, listening to recorded audios, or presenting to accessible people for critiques. Rehearsals started on August 16, the day directly following callbacks. This is the stage where potential candidates are paired to read aloud together for a view on chemistry.
“Rehearsals are going amazing!” junior Noah Schlanger said. “The actors are moving along very well and will soon be off book.”
On the first day of rehearsal, the cast had their first table read where they read through the full script together with assigned roles. The table read allows the cast to begin familiarizing themselves with the lines without the later pressures of a fully developed character.
“My aim is to do her justice and portray all of her little quicks that go on in her head,” junior Olivia Ervin said.
The play is as it sounds. It is a play about a play that goes wrong. The play within the RCHS production is a murder mystery. This second layer means that the cast not only has to play their roles in the production but the roles within the play of the production. Each RCHS actor plays a character who is also an actor in the play within the play, and in doing so, the characters will forget their lines and surely trip over their feet (on purpose, because that is the play). Also, the set pieces will play an active role for comedic support. There are various risks for the reward of laughter.
