A High School Play Called Arsenic and Old Lace

Spring is always a busy time for schools.  Most of them have a lot of concerts and activities that showcase what they have learned throughout the year.  Since we live near all of our grandchildren, we have attended many of their activities.  We have missed a few because we either didn't know about them or they overlapped with each other.  We try to make it even, which isn't always easy.  This weekend our oldest grandchild Melissa was involved with her Spring high school play.  The Fall play is always a musical and in the Spring they do a drama.  This following blog includes the Mary Poppins play they did last Fall.  http://www.thecabincountess.com/2016/11/high-school-plays-are-best.html  Our grandson is the opposite, the Fall is a drama (included in the blog above) and Spring is the musical http://www.thecabincountess.com/2017/02/ripon-high-school-musical.html.  This year Melissa's play was a dramatic comedy called Arsenic and Old Lace.  The cast was pretty small with only three female characters, so our granddaughter played two men.  One she was cast to play and the other she filled in for someone who quit the play.  She was also the student director.  It's too bad they didn't choose a play where more kids could participate, but it was still good.

The first character she played was Mr. Gibbs.  For those familiar with the story, the two main characters are sisters who have rooms for rent.  They save lonely old men by giving them Elderberry wine laced with poison.  Mr. Gibbs inquired about a room only to be chased out before he drank the wine.  She did a German accent with this character.  It was so funny.

The second character was Lieutenant Roony.  He is Columbo type police lieutenant who comes in to investigate.  She did an awesome Brooklyn accent for this one.

 

I think it was kind of fun for her to play these parts.  She really got into it.  She even had to learn how to hold a cigarette.  I am grateful that she didn't know how.   

The day after the play we were at the library.  We noticed they had a DVD of the old Arsenic and Old Lace movie from the 1940's.  It starred Cary Grant and Peter Lorre.  It was equally chaotic, but I think I enjoyed the high school production more.  They did better accents, that's for sure.

In order to see how Melissa really looks, here is a picture of her from a recent solo ensemble performance she did.  She sang a song from the Secret Garden.  

We are really proud of her and hope she continues to be involved throughout the rest of her high school years. She is just a sophomore so she has more performances ahead of her.