One-Act Play Season Is Underway!
Launch the media gallery 1 playerSeveral Upcoming Performances Scheduled!
By: Aiden Miller, a senior at Leigh High School
The One-Act Play Production season is in full swing! With 40 actors and 13 crew members, this year is one of the biggest groups ever. The team will be competing in a higher class this year, D-1, for the first time in over a decade.
Another change for this year’s performance is that it is not the traditional comedy Leigh is known for. This year the One Act team is taking on “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” a musical by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler. A movie starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter follows the original musical pretty closely, but for those who are unfamiliar, it is a cult-classic slasher play in which Sweeney Todd, an unjustly exiled barber, returns to 1800s London, seeking vengeance against the lecherous judge who framed him, ravaged his young wife, and stole his child.
In the play, the lead role is Sweeney Todd, played by senior Kanyon Held. Todd was saved by young sailor Anthony Hope, played by Aiden Miller, whose love interest is Sweeney Todd’s daughter, Johanna, played by Macy Clausen. Senior Audie Tejkl plays the notorious judge, and sophomore Morgan Bunner plays Beadle Bamford, the judge’s sidekick.
Senior Makenna Held plays the female lead, Mrs. Lovett, who runs a meat pie business underneath Todd’s barber shop. Other characters include a Beggar Woman, played by Gabriel Pinkston, who also plays Mr. Fogg, the head of an asylum. Jared Olson plays Mr. Adolfo Pirelli, a rival barber, and Brianne Kuhr plays Pirelli’s young assistant.
A teaser for those who plan to see the show: 9 characters are murdered throughout the course of the show…see if you can count them all!
The One-Act team traveled to the Schuyler High School Festival on Tuesday, November 9th, and placed second in their first performance of the season. Kanyon Held, Makenna Held, Tejkl, Miller, Pinkston, Kuhr, Bunner and Clausen all earned Outstanding Actor recognition.
The team will travel to the East Husker Conference competition in Lyons on November 16. Their home matinee performance is scheduled in the Leigh High School gym at 2 pm on Tuesday, November 23. The Dinner Theater home performance is scheduled for Sunday, November 28, at 7 pm. A dinner sponsored by the Travel Club begins at 6:15 pm. Districts will also be held in Leigh on Wednesday, December 1. Leigh performs at 11:15 and hopes to have a nice home crowd!
The play this year is directed by Justine Fischer. Assistants are Megan Hillen and Michelle Held. Kip and Kamin Held, Loretta Tejkl, Dennis and Linda Hillen, and Cole Fischer are volunteer helpers as well!
“I am so excited by this year’s play,” Mrs. Fischer said. “We have a lot of experienced acting talent, and a lot of people have worked very hard to make this story come to life! We are excited to tell this infamous story. It has been an interesting change of pace to do a murder play instead of a comedy, but it has been fun, albeit stressful, so far! I’m so proud of the dedication the kids have to One-Act and to putting on a great show. We hope to have a lot of people to support us at our home performances!”