Hillsboro High School students have worked on both sides of the curtain preparing the six one-act plays that will be performed this weekend.
The short plays, ranging from parody to murder mystery and written and directed by Hillsboro High Drama Club students, will be performed at 7 p.m. today, May 9, and Saturday, May 10, at the Hillsboro High School Theatre, 123 Leon Hall Parkway.
Three of the plays, “Broken Bones,” “Cold Turkey” and “Octo-Activities,” will be performed today. The following evening, the other three plays, “The Ghost in the Theatre,” “Murder, Tarts, and Crazy Coincidences” and “Two for the Show,” will be performed on Saturday.
Admission is free; however, donations will be accepted. The donations will benefit the Drama Club, which will use the money to send students to the Missouri State Thespian Conference in January 2026. Tickets are only available at the door.
Stephanie Williams, a Hillsboro High English teacher who is overseeing the theater production, said students began working on writing their shows in August and began producing them in early April.
With more than 70 characters across six shows, Williams said the casting process was tricky.
“Some students are playing as many as three roles, and they’re rehearsing in shifts after school to avoid overlap as much as possible,” she said.
Since the students are in the director’s chair this time around, Williams sees her role in the production as a mentor and facilitator.
“I think that writing is a great creative opportunity and a collaborative one that also makes (students) think more deeply about what it takes to produce a play. They have to plan out sets, costumes and all the other aspects of production based on what we can reasonably achieve with our stock pieces,” she said. “The act of directing and being directed by a peer teaches them a lot about cooperation and management.”
Students take the wheel
For Hillsboro High seniors and Drama Club members Brock Day and Lillia Tucker, the production is their first foray into writing and directing a play. Their play, “The Ghost in the Theatre,” is inspired by a paranormal inside joke within the Drama Club.
“(It’s) a true story of someone having a ‘ghostly’ experience in our theater a while back, and I made the joke of calling that shadow they had seen a graduated senior who is very much alive,” Day said. “It caught on, and we even have a ‘Beware Of’ sign in our theater now because of the joke.”
In creating the play, Day said he wanted to bring that humor to life.
“Writing it, alongside my friend Lillia Tucker, really had me feeling bittersweet (thinking of) all my graduated friends and the memories they had left behind,” he added.
Tucker said she wanted to do something a little different before graduation, and that’s when she and Day got the idea to create a show together.
“It has been such a blast to direct alongside one of my very good friends … and it was so cool to watch our ideas be perceived by the actors in our play,” she said. “I’m super proud of everything we’ve accomplished in such a short amount of time, and I’m very excited to be able to perform for our community on May 10!”
Junior Brendan Smith-Hynes is also a first-time writer and director and created the superhero comedy, “Broken Bones.”
Smith-Hynes said the plot revolves around a superhero-sidekick duo who are terrible at their jobs.
He said there were both up sides and down sides to his role as director.
“Coming into it, I had no idea just how much effort needs to be put in directing a show; it’s really an eye-opening experience and makes me respect our directors so much more,” he said. “On the other hand, it's a lot of fun; the amount of creative control we’re given with our shows is incredible.”
Smith-Hynes ultimately credits that artistic freedom to Williams and Leigh Kalista, another theater director and language arts teacher at Hillsboro High.
“As the director and writer, I feel obligated to make this show as enjoyable as I can, and I couldn’t do that without the freedom they gave me,” Smith-Hynes said. “I’m so grateful to them, and I’m so happy I’ve gotten the chance to produce something like this.”
“Cold Turkey” is co-written and directed by senior Morgan Suedkamp and sophomore Ryan Russell.
"Octo-Activities" is written and directed by freshman Alex Hott.
"Murder, Tarts, and Crazy Coincidences" is co-written and directed by sophomore Marshall Bedell and freshman Jadon Read.
"Two for the Show" is written and directed by senior Max Maue.