On Friday night, weeks of late nights and hard work will culminate for Portage High School theater students as the 2012 PHS Fall Play “The 39 Steps” hits the stage. This year’s Fall Play presented a unique challenge for the students, since “The 39 Steps” was originally done with four actors playing all of the roles.
“Much of its comedy is derived from the fact that four people play all of the roles, so you get all the silliness of them switching roles and doing everything themselves,” Giese said. “We took a completely different direction. We went totally out of the box, completely silly.”
Giese and the students completely revamped the original work, conceiving their own comedic aspects. Junior Matt Bliss, who is participating in only his second production on the PHS stage, has snagged the lead role of Richard Hannay. Those who attend this weekend will receive a heavy dose of Bliss, who is the one character that appears in every scene throughout the play.
“He has the biggest line load I’ve ever seen,” Giese said. “He has 14 zillion lines to learn. He has one section that’s almost four pages long just for him. It’s different.”
Giese said that the Theater Department lost a large and talented graduating class last year, which has allowed underclassmen the chance to play key roles this year.
“They’re great kids all and all; this is a very young group,” Giese said. “The youngsters that were underclassmen last year have to step up this year and take the reins.”
One of the few theater veterans on the cast is senior Rachel Stewart, who has been actively involved in theater since transferring to PHS as a sophomore. Stewart plays Pamela Edwards, who is one of several female leads in the play. Stewart, whose character has a Brittish accent, said that the accents of the characters were another challenge presented to the cast this year.
“I would definitely say that this year’s play is going to be a lot different than anything we’ve ever done,” Stewart said. “This play has never been done by a high school before. It’s new, it’s exciting and it’s melodramatic. Another way it’s different it because it’s all accents. There isn’t one person who speaks like anyone in American; it’s all foreign.”
When community members, students and families pour into the auditorium this weekend, they will see a little bit of everything.
“We made it as big of a show as you could possibly do and this has turned out to be the biggest play I’ve ever done in my life,” Giese said. “We have dancing Nazis, a flock of sheep and we will be crashing an airplane on the stage. We’re just having a ball with it.”
In order for “The 39 Steps” to come together, it has taken hard work from the 38 actors and 40-50 students that work on the production crew between lights, makeup, sounds, running crew, building and painting. Senior Bree Rutz serves as the Student Director of the play.
“The 39 Steps” runs Friday and Saturday (Nov. 16-17) at 7:30 p.m. prior to Sunday’s matinee at 2:30. Tickets are available at the door for just $7.
“It’s been a lot of work, the kids are working their tails off, I’m working my tail off,” Giese said. “It’s basically a big, full production musical style show without singing. Tons of sound effects, just everything; we do it all.”
Photos by Taylor Searcy, Pow Wow Photographer