Boulder City High students prepare for final play of the year

Mona Shield Payne / Special to the Sun

Boulder City High School students, from left, Allie Calloway, Tyler Olson, Hayley Rassuchine, Brittany Ricciardo, Bryan Sheeler and Shane Zellow, run through Act I of “Play On!” during rehearsal Monday at Boulder City High School.

By Jean Reid Norman (contact)

Thursday, April 16, 2009 | 1:54 p.m.

Mona Shield Payne / Special to the Sun

Playing the roles of Billy and Violet respectively, Bryan Sheeler and Brittany Ricciardo run through their lines in Act I of "Play On!" during rehearsal Monday at Boulder City High School.

WHAT: Boulder City High production of "Play On!"

WHEN: 7 p.m. April 23-25

WHERE: Boulder City High School Theater

COST: $7 adults, $5 students

INFO: 799-8200

Ten Boulder City students are getting a taste of what their future as thespians may be like as they rehearse the Boulder City High School Drama Department’s spring production “Play On!”

The play-within-a-play is about a community acting troupe putting on a locally written production, and it mirrors many of the experiences the high school group is going through, said Heidi Lee, director and drama teacher.

“During rehearsal, the dialogue in the script will talk about rehearsal mess-ups, and it will reflect the mess-ups we have in real rehearsal,” Lee said. “We crack up.”

“Sometimes I will give direction and say something like the director would say in the play. There are so many mirror images of real theater,” she said.

This is the department’s third and final production this year, not including the talent show in February. The 10-member cast includes mostly, but not all, theater students, she said.

“They are all right for the characters,” she said. “Some are even typecast and are exactly like their character.”

Lee wanted to end the year’s productions with a comedy. In the fall, the department did the more serious “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” she said, but spring is a time for fun.

“The kids are wound up and in that mindset,” she said.

She said she hopes the community sees the production as an opportunity to get in a night of entertainment.

“I’m trying to get the community to see this is theater for them as well,” she said. “It’s not just for students or the school.”