“The Musical Comedy Murderers of 1940,” Diamond Bar High School’s Fall Play, will be performed starting this weekend. The play presents a creepy, timely plot, given that the play’s opening night is five days prior to Halloween.
The play’s setting is an extravagant Westchester estate, where most of the crimes take place. From the very beginning of the play, three chorus girls have already been killed. Because of this, audience members are able to dive in and identify the mysterious culprit, otherwise known as the “Stage Door Slasher.” The audience is intended to keep guessing until the very end. As the play progresses, people slowly begin to disappear while even more baffling activity takes place. In addition to the murder mysteries, knives fly around and masked strangers run throughout the mansion. To make matters worse, an uninvited blizzard destroys any hopes of escaping from the estate, leaving the characters accusing each other for the crimes.
The drama class’ adaptation of the John Bishop play, which was performed on Broadway in 1987, will undoubtedly be a success due to the hard work put into the production by the students and drama teacher Peter Bland. The roles of the cast members were assigned before school ended last year and the lines were supposed to be rehearsed throughout the summer.
“Rehearsal for the play has been long and tedious. But overall I think we’ll end up giving a great show. We’ve been working hard since school started and the play is falling together really nicely,” junior Siham Ayoub, who plays the role of Bernice, commented.
The most interesting aspect of the casting is the fact that seniors Matthew Tanaka and Ryan Gatus alternate playing the characters of O’Reilly and Ken for the Purple and Gold Cast. These students aspire to incorporate acting into their majors in college and, so Bland arranged this casting change in order to better prepare them for their futures.
The drama class’ upcoming events do not stop there. In addition to the play, students of DBHS can also look forward to the upcoming “Live Radio Theatre” from Nov 8 to 10. The “Live Radio Theatre” is based on the antiquated idea of actors performing plays on air. To add to their activities this year, the class is participating in a competition with an entry in “Improvisation.”
