Jamie Lammers, Nederland. Last weekend, thespians at Nederland Middle-Senior High School performed the one-act fall plays of the 2019-2020 school year, three of which were performed on Friday and three on Saturday. Five of the shows were directed by students and one by theater and choir director Elizabeth Evans, who has worked at Nederland for 35 years and seen hundreds of shows come to life on the Nederland stage.

The fall plays opened with Evans’ show, The Education of Janet O’Malley. The comedy, which was chosen for her intro to theater class, revolves around a high school student (played by Liesl Nunemacher) who wants to become a plumber and doesn’t see the point of school. When she’s hit in the head by a dodgeball during gym, she travels through multiple dream sequences and finds out why everything she learns in school matters. One of Evans’ favorite aspects of the class is that she gets to teach students who don’t normally participate in the theater program. Except for Hadley Zotti and Jamie Lammers, who have performed at Ned since middle school, none of the actors had been in a show before. Despite this, all of the students did a fantastic job. Nunemacher, Chris Francis, Shayna Beckham, Ash Beatty, Oliver Vernon, Ranjan Malla, and Nialla Gormley all worked really hard on projecting, staying in character, and getting past the “I can’t memorize a show” mentality. Nunemacher gave a breakthrough lead performance, Francis’ comedic timing and delivery were perfect, Beckham’s energy shone through in her performance, and everyone else was just as likable, energetic, and fun to watch.

The next show was Tracks, directed by Hadley Zotti. Having only directed comedies previously, Zotti really wanted to direct a drama for her senior year. The show takes place entirely in a subway station. A lawyer (Lucy Schalz), a professor (Jamie Lammers), a businessman (Cooper Nielsen), a businesswoman (Skylar Abookire), and a nun (Abigail Hess) all realize they have arrived from different locations around the world. A homeless girl (Alexandra Beruman-Gonzalez) and an old man (Mason Ivey) break the news that they are all dead and the subway station is a gateway to either heaven or hell. But which one is it? As they struggle to figure out which way the train is going, they discuss the moral dilemmas of their actions when they were alive and argue about why the train could go either way. The whole cast gave emotionally resonant and deeply moving performances. Even newcomers like Nielsen, Ivey, Hess, Olive Shrum as a high school girl, and Ruby Gustafson as a waitress gave it their all, and the veteran actors like Lammers, Beruman-Gonzalez, Abookire, Schalz, and especially Townes Bakke as the high school girl’s boyfriend gave performances different from anything they’ve ever done before.

Concluding Friday night was The Fifteen Minute Hamlet, directed by Meagan Figgins in her solo debut. As the title suggests, the show takes William Shakespeare’s most famous play and shortens it to 15 minutes… then shortens it even more in an encore… then shortens it even more in another encore. As an actress, Figgins often rehearses her shows in fast-forward or with vastly opposing moods so that she can figure out where to take her character, so she loved the concept of an entire show moving in fast-forward. That passion showed as her energy and comedic style came through in this comedic play. The show preserves the core lines of Shakespeare’s script verbatim, so understanding the show and the satire of it was difficult for the cast. However, even newcomers like Ben Weber and Leo Filippello delivered their lines in a way that modern audiences could follow, focusing on multiple different character and costume changes. Amelie Bodney and Lauren Schrader gave delightful performances as Ophelia and Gertrude and Alexandra Beruman-Gonzalez was hysterically over-the-top as four different characters from the classic play. Finally, Maya Beauvineau, who made a brief return to Nederland theater, was the perfect Hamlet. Her energy and passion were infectious, and it’s hard to imagine anyone who could have played the role as well.

On Saturday night, the fall plays opened with Murder in the Green Room, directed by Jamie Lammers. Continuing his unintentional tradition of directing plays that center around a play-within-a-play or contain a murder of some sort (or sometimes both), the show focuses on a small theater group known as the Oak Six. The group consists of five actors, played by Rowan Harper, Blue Garcia-Payne, Eliza Brundege, Sierra Tomlinson, and Charlie Davis. The plot centers around the actors gathering to talk about their latest performance. The younger actors are getting annoyed at the original founders of the group because they always choose the same actors for their shows. When one of the younger actors suddenly dies, the others start to wonder if foul play was involved. Since everyone except Harper was a newcomer to acting, the enthusiasm, passion for the theater, and respect given by the actors was a huge relief for Lammers, and all of them gave solid performances and handled the challenging prop work well (including using actual food and water).

The second show of the night was The Children’s Story, co-directed by first-timers Rowan Harper and Townes Bakke. After Evans overheard a conversation by the directors about Nazis and the National Socialist party, she suggested this show, which has been performed at Ned before. The show takes place entirely in a classroom in an alternate history where the United States loses a war to a totalitarian country. A much-beloved older teacher (Ivy Brundege) is replaced by a seemingly easy-going and friendly younger teacher (Hadley Zotti) who quickly gains the respect of the students. As the show unfolds, more sinister motivations are revealed in her teachings, which results in the manipulation and brainwashing of those students, played by Noah Turner, Kendall Zotti, Alex Jaffe, Morgan Lake, Trinity Prahl, Elijah Weiner, Mateo Beauvineau, and Savannah Hill. Both of the directors loved the subtlety of the dialogue, the complexity of the story, and the psychological undertones of the plot, but it was easily the most challenging show of the entire season. The lighting, tech, performances, and amount of dialogue were all difficult, but in the final product, the show flowed effortlessly. Zotti and Turner gave award-worthy performances and had an incredible back-and-forth dynamic. Beauvineau and Lake had an incredible comedic dynamic, and the innocence of the rest of the students came through in every moment of the well-paced show.

Finally came Natalie Taylor and Mia Milwicz-Clanton with their directorial debut, He’s Having A Baby. As the title suggests, the show focuses on a society where males give birth instead of females. Mrs. Murray (Meagan Figgins) panics while she waits for her husband to deliver their first baby, while experienced mothers (Clementine Miller and Aya Pelkum-Donahue) calmly wait for their next child. Murray’s best friend (Ande Hammers) waits with her and provides support, and as the show progresses, the nurse (Dean Howell) updates everyone on the progress of the husbands. Natalie and Mia decided to direct a comedy in order to balance out the other darker shows, although Natalie was initially hesitant to pick the ridiculous script. The final product demonstrated the chemistry between all of the actors, and their performances were comedically on-point. In particular, Figgins was suitably over-the-top and Miller gave a great performance, despite needing an additional mike after getting laryngitis before the show.

Along with the fall plays, six duo and solo acts performed in the Nederland talent show, competing for a cash prize. Opening Friday night, Aya Pelkum-Donahue played piano and sang with Laila Waldron for their performance of the traditional English folk song Greensleeves. Jamie Lammers went center-stage and belted out Bad Habit by Ben Platt. Finally, Ely Nitsch, Hakan Chunton, Helen Cross and Meagan Figgins let loose on instruments like the slide whistle, tambourine, and melodica. Under the moniker The Moist Sardines, they performed songs like Despacito and the theme song of The Office, resulting in much laughter from the audience.

On Saturday night, Jake Geels (violin) and Keahi Pelkum-Donahue (cello) opened the night with the classical piece A Celebrated Duet. Skyler Abookire and Annabel Ivey enchanted the audience playing ukuleles and singing the classic song Tonight You Belong to Me. Finally, Ellie Brewer played piano and sang Gravity by Sara Bareilles. For their performances, Brewer won third place in the competition, Abookire and Ivey won second, and Geels and Pelkum-Donahue won first.

Thanks to the complexity of the shows, the multiple commitments of the actors and directors, and unsafe weather conditions resulting in dress rehearsal cancellations, the 2019 fall play season was one of the most difficult seasons in recent memory. However, the dedication from all the actors and directors resulted in performances that everybody can and should be proud of.

Special thanks to the technical crew (Margaret Lake, Zach Weiner, Chris Francis, Owen Cleveland, Ben Nichols, Mia Milwicz-Clanton, Ely Nitsch, and Violet Rainwater) for their backstage assistance and to all of the parents, teachers, and community members who actively support the Ned theater program.

(Originally published in the November 14, 0291, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)