CLINTON TWP. — Lackawanna Trail Drama Club’s spring play, “Out of the Frying Pan” by Francis Swann, slated for March 23-25, is a show of “firsts.”
It is the school’s first non-musical production since 2010.
It is a first show for eight of the 12 cast members.
And, for at least one actor, Owen Scioscia, it is his first major onstage role, although he took on smaller parts in the past.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Scioscia said of the play. “I enjoy the references and the time period, the clothes.”
According to the play’s synopsis, provided by director Brink Powell, “The story centers on three young men and three young women sharing an apartment in New York City in the early 1940s.
“They are would-be actors who have been driven to this living arrangement due to financial insecurity. The apartment is directly above that of a Broadway producer, who has a current hit running. The would-be actors rehearse the play, but how will they get the producer to see their performance? Complicating matters more is a snippy young friend who threatens to spill the beans to one of the female actor’s mother about the unconventional living arrangements.”
Performances are scheduled for 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, March 23 and 24 and 2 p.m. Sunday, March 25 in the First National Bank Auditorium at Lackawanna Trail Jr/Sr High School. Tickets are $10 for general admission, $8 for seniors and students and $2 for Lackawanna Trail students.
Scioscia, a sophomore, is performing as Norman, a character he described as “the big brother of the group” who “does everything in the household,” such as the cooking and cleaning.
Jennifer Price, a senior, is cast as the Broadway producer.
“She is a little easy to anger, I would say, and kind of wacky,” Price said.
She added she enjoys the role because of its contrast to her own real-life personality.
“It’s fun to be loud and a little bit freaked out,” she said. “It’s fun to be a different person.”
Another of the actresses, Lauren Zotta, a senior, said the best thing about being in the play, to her, is “being able to have a good time with all of (her) friends.”
She initially joined the crew as stage manager, but was called on to fill the role of Tony after another of the cast members had to withdraw from the production due to a personal matter beyond his control.
Tony, she said, is the “handsomest” of the three male roommates, and secretly married to Marge, one of the three females.
The rest of the cast includes Abby Dalton, Amanda Haft and Rachel Saxton, all sophomores; Madison Norman and Tia Brooks, both freshmen; Cassandra Rivenburg and Kamryn Mercer, both eighth-graders; and Kadence Spencer and Ethan Terpak, both seventh-graders.
According to Powell, the entire cast is doing an amazing job, despite the fact that the majority of the students have never acted before.
“They blow me away,” she said, adding their first rehearsal without their scripts in hand was the best first off-script rehearsal she has ever witnessed in her many years of involvement in community and high school theater productions.
“When we took the scripts out of their hands, the characters came to life,” she said.
“I was sitting there flabbergasted.”