By: Eliana Carlson & Aubrey Coats
This year’s fall play takes a different turn by choosing to have two different one act plays. Dracula and Cheating Death have now been chosen for PHS 2026 fall play.
Information on the Two Plays
Mrs. Simpson, the play director, chose to do two plays this year. Her cast from last year’s play got to vote, and they chose the play Dracula. Mrs. Simpson said she couldn’t find a full length play for Dracula so she found another short funny play so there were two acts for the cast in the play. The second play she found is called Cheating Death. The characters Dracula are the same from the book, the only difference she made is the fact that Van Helsing is a woman in this play instead of a man. For Cheating Death Mrs. Simpson chose for the death character to be a man in a business suit instead of the original character in a black cloak. She chose Cheating Death and Dracula for the two plays as they take place around Halloween so she wanted them to fit the spooky aspect, while they are also funny to the audience at times.
Choosing the Cast
Mrs. Simpson chose the cast for the plays by having students audition after school. She has the students pick what they want to audition for and they practice lines to read in front of her. When she goes to pick the characters and who will play as who she looks for how how comfortable they are in reading the lines, how loud their volume is, as well as their fluency and how their tone is with the words, and the last thing she looks for is how well they can gesture with the lines and acts to make the scene flow through. The last thing from Mrs. Simpson is we asked her why she chose to direct plays. She had said that she first started to direct the plays as the previous directors retired, and that a lot of her students pressured her into directing, after that she decided to stay as the director as she began to love directing the plays.
Student Manager Roles
We now begin to talk about the student managers and the different roles there are. The first role is a student director who can help keep notes, and can also take over when Mrs. Simpson steps back and they can direct the play. Then there is a stage manager who is in charge of the stage and making sure the props and characters are in the current places at the correct time. Then there is another manger who is in charge of the light cues, and the cues of the characters on stage. We interviewed the student manager from last year who has Melanie Zimmerman. She said that the student manager’s job is to keep everyone organized with their roles, and props as well as their costumes. The student manager also keeps track of all of the props and set designs along with the light and sound cues. Melanie thinks that running the two different plays won’t be too different as there is an intermission between. She does think that it will be a little harder with having different props and sets for the two plays as well as the characters and the costumes for transitioning.
The Musical Aspect
The musical aspect though is different as Mrs.Olson is in charge of that category as Mrs. Simpson isn’t very good at dealing with the musical aspect and the music along with the choreography aspect. It is also a lot more work dealing with the music and making sure it is right along with having to set a choreography.
A Little Fun Fact
A little fun fact to end this article is that we asked Mrs. Simpson what her favorite play to direct was. Her response was that she enjoyed directing the play Puffs that took place in the fall of 2021. She stated that she enjoyed the play as it was the funniest one she has done as well as the group of kids she had that year were really talented and experienced at acting in plays, which had made it more fun and interesting.