Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School’s (PSO) theatre troupe will be spreading rumours from Jan. 15 to 19 nightly starting at 7 p.m. (as well as a matinee performance on Jan. 19 for 2 p.m.) in their adaption of Neil Simon’s Rumors.
“It’s an extremely funny, attractive play that attracts the audience,” said Alex Seiler, a Grade 12 student in the play.
Rumors is about a group of friends who gather for a party on behalf of Charlie Brock, the local mayor. Unfortunately, it becomes a mess of rumours and theories after one of the guests has a mishap.
“So they’re all trying to cover it up with different stories and it’s gotten mixed throughout the whole show and no one has the right story,” said Mia Weir, a Grade 11 student who plays a scorned wife of Cassie Cooper.
This is Weir’s second play with PSO and under the direction of director Monique Corno, but she has been involved in theatre her whole life, she said.
Cooper and her husband arrive second last to the party, where most of the plot has been developed. But her role offers some comedy as Cooper believed her husband, Glen, is having an affair and snipes at him throughout the course of the night and causes a lot of the drama.
Weir said she was very excited about the role and the play in general, adding that she thinks it will be very good.
Seiler, who will be playing Weir’s husband, said the play was essentially an extremely comedic but an almost murder mystery-type play.
His character is a politician currently running for state Senate and has an extremely turbulent relationship with his wife.
“He delivers a lot of key lines. When the cops come he messes up big”, said Seiler of his character, who arrives late in the play but becomes an essential piece of the play.
Seiler was also in last year’s play and said he decided to choose drama as an elective because he wasn’t sure what else to take but also had a passion for fine arts.
He said he was extremely satisfied in being cast as Glen Cooper, the character he originally went after due to the interesting part and the way he converses and reacts to the other characters, which Seiler said he found fun.
“I don’t believe my job to relate to the character. It is my job to be the character. Relating can make it easier and it can bring you into the character but becoming a whole new person is also just as exciting,” he said about taking up the role. “It’s exciting because you get to strip your own persona and become someone entirely new. You get to relearn how to be a person.”
Tickets are on sale for $10 at PSO, Didi’s Boutique and Rustic Elements, Tickets are $15 at door.
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