Newtown High School (NHS) students are ready to take the stage for their fall drama, Clue (High School Edition), set to open on Thursday, November 13.

Performances will be staged in the auditorium of the high school, 12 Berkshire Road, with evening performances at 7 pm Thursday through Saturday, November 13-15, and a matinee performance at 2 pm Sunday, November 16.

Tickets are $12 for adults, $10 for seniors, and $10 for students, and are available at nhsc.booktix.com.

Based on the cult classic film and the popular board game, Clue is a madcap comedic play that keeps audiences guessing until the final twist.

It is a dark and stormy night, and several guests have been invited to a very unusual dinner party. Each of the guests has an alias, the butler offers a variety of weapons, and the host is, well, dead. So whodunit? Join the iconic oddballs Scarlet, Plum, White, Green, Peacock, and Mustard as they race to find the murderer in Boddy Manor before the body count stacks up.

Much like previous years, NHS seniors have taken the reins on directing the school’s fall drama. Clue is directed by NHS seniors Lillian Padilla and Michayl Wilford, who are super excited for everyone to see the show when it opens next week.

When it came to picking this year’s show, Wilford said they knew going into it that they wanted to do a comedy. This is because last year’s fall drama, Letters to Sala, was a heavy and emotional show about a young woman surviving wartime Germany and several labor camps in the Holocaust.

“And so we thought a comedy would be fun, and Clue is one of the best options for that,” Wilford said.

Padilla agreed with Wilford, adding, “whether it’s the movie or the board game, everybody knows what Clue is.”

It was one of several shows they had in mind when filling out the application for the fall drama late last school year. While some of their other options did not pan out, Wilford said they were really happy they got the rights to do Clue.

“It’s also just like a really fun show to produce, where everyone can go all out with their characters,” Wilford said.

After Clue was picked at the beginning of the school year, she said they began rehearsing for it almost right away. While they started with three rehearsals a week, they had rehearsals every weekday by Thursday, October 30.

“We’re doing a Saturday this week, even though we don’t normally do weekends,” Padilla told The Newtown Bee on Thursday afternoon. “[That said,] we’re gonna start doing weekends because the show is coming up so fast.”

Padilla said they planned to stay until 6 pm that night, with a few cast members staying for an extra stage combat class until 7 pm. Clue is a show known for its high-energy physical comedy, so the class serves as a way for students to protect themselves from certain motions.

That said, Padilla stressed the class is not really “stage combat” stage combat as much as it is teaching people how to fall on the ground.

“So it’s a lot of training on things you think you know how to do, this way you can do it more safely,” Padilla explained.

Wilford said they always want to make sure their cast is safe on stage, especially since the show contains a lot of physical movement.

Preparing for the show goes far beyond rehearsing scenes, according to Padilla and Wilford.

Specifically, Wilford said they have crew after rehearsal for around two hours, where they spend a lot of time designing the set. Another thing they planned to focus on in the coming weeks, she added, was finalizing their costumes.

NHS teacher Janice Gabriel, who has helped supervise the production, said she is extremely proud of the students for their hard work.

She called Clue a hard show not just for being based on a really famous movie, but for actors needing to take it seriously in order to enhance the comedy.

“As an actor, you have to believe everything that’s happening while still portraying the comedy of it to the audience. ... it’s a really funny show, but you have to be serious in order to make it funny. It’s definitely not easy,” Gabriel said.

Good Laughs, Good Company

Both Padilla and Wilford said Clue has been a team effort. The production team, from those who manage lighting to the ones who handle sound, have really helped bring the show together in their respective fields.

For Padilla and Wilford, the show is just one step in each of their theater journeys. Padilla said she has been doing theater since she was in fifth grade.

“It’s been a really long journey for me,” she continued. “I’ve always been on stage, but when I got to high school I started doing the tech side of it, I learned directing is a whole different animal. Getting to see everything that goes into a show and putting it all together has been really eye opening.”

Wilford has also done shows since she was in fifth grade. She stayed involved in her schools’ theater programs all the way through eighth grade, but then stopped for several years after entering high school. Wilford did not do the fall drama or spring music until she did Letters to Sala last year.

However, she has been very involved in the school’s Unified Theater classes, which put on a show every year around January.

“So I’ve always been somehow involved in the theater department, just not always in the same way,” Wilford explained. “I’m very lucky to have [Padilla] because she’s a lot more experienced with the crew side of things, where as I’m mostly [experienced] with cast.”

Something Padilla and Wilford learned from directing the show that they do not think they would have learned otherwise is time management and organizational skills.

“I feel like ... you think you know how long you’re gonna need to be here and how much time it’ll take to do certain things, but then it ends up taking three hours more than you expected,” Padilla said.

Wilford said she also learned a lot about balancing relationships between being friends with the cast and being their director.

“We have a great cast that’s always making us laugh, but we also have to make sure we get stuff done,” Wilford added.

Padilla said the cast and crew feels like “a big family.”

She continued, “I feel like everybody says that about theater ... but we spend so much time together that it really does get to be like a big family.

Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.