The North Nodaway School Play this year was named "The Audition," a play about a brand new teacher (Olivia Renfro) and her assistant (Lacy Riley) trying to manage a group of unruly students trying out for the annual school play. They don't just want to be like other schools, they want to be much better than the competition.
There was the world-class dancer, Amy Richards, who discovers that the assistant teacher is not up on the latest teen slang, demands that there be a lot of dance in her character, and backs it up by winning a dance-off with Riley, embarrassing her in front of the rest of the students. There is another girl, Addalea Barcus, who hates singing with a passion, doesn't know the words to "Happy Birthday," and eats, sleeps, and breathes on her cell phone.
Several of the students played multiple characters, including Richards, who plays the role of a student whose mother constantly fusses over her, and her favorite line to her mother is, "I really don't care, Mom!" During her audition, she tries to play Hamlet, only to be completely disengaged. She doesn't get selected. Clapp played a second role as well, playing the role of a student who couldn't project her voice. Despite all the coaching Lacy Riley had to offer, she could barely speak beyond a whisper and was not selected.
There is the socially awkward boy, Gannon Volner, who has never done an audition before and who is wondering if anyone else there is in the same boat he is. One of the girls, Sadee Clapp, has a crush on him and insists on doing some of the sappiest scenes with him. One of Gannon's lines was, "Compared to you, my girlfriend looks like an octopus," to which Clapp responded, "You have to kiss me!" Volner was looking different for Friday's play; he recently shaved his head to show support for his friend, Trevin Wyllie.
The lead role of the play in The Audition went to Jackie Wray, who once played Tigger, lives with her single mother (Aryianna Jimenez), who never once went to her plays, never approved of her doing them, and finally puts her foot down and demands Wray do work around the house instead. One of the challenges was whether Wray could convince her mother to let her play the lead role and possibly get her name out to prospective college recruiters and employers.
Then, there is the Mean Girls Club, consisting of Trynzlee Ebrecht, Taccoa Moyer, Pyper Smith, Draven Rader, and to some extent Sadee Clapp, although Clapp is on the way out of their circle. The Mean Girls Club is a group of girls with all the money and prestige and who love thumbing their noses up at students they think are weird or trash, such as Katelyn Parman, one of their favorite punching bags throughout school. They did a really good job in elementary of convincing the teacher that it was all just play. But Parman, whose mother has passed away and who misses her every day, has gotten to the point where she no longer cares what the Mean Girls Club thinks of her, and in fact, would get the lead role in the play should Jackie Wray not be able to convince her mother to let her be in the play.
As frequently happens when a new teacher comes to town, they don't always please everybody. Casey Wray played an obnoxious mother who was furious that her daughter didn't get selected even though she had been the lead role in last year's play and had moved people to tears. "My daughter sings like an angel," Wray screamed. She challenges Olivia Renfro to a fight, and Renfro barely touches her, but Wray falls to the floor screaming and writhing and threatening to sue her for emotional distress and bodily injury.
Finally, the cast is selected and the play cuts away two hours before curtain time. The public is invited to draw its own conclusions about how the play went.
Sheridan put together a similar play almost 40 years ago during its Little Dinner Theater productions that ran from the late 1970's after the school closed until the early 1990's. Chandra Hopkins played the role of an overbearing play director who constantly thumbed her nose up at everyone and the auditions, recitals, and play itself were chaos.
Laney Turner, a freshman, was in charge of the lights and sound.
The Roxy Committee did a lot of work making improvements to the building so that the play was possible. Emily Bix directed the play and Ellaina Renfro was her assistant.
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