At Risk! Of Killing it on Stage

On April 1st and 2nd, the Fair Grove High School theater performed their murder mystery At Risk! in the Upper Elementary Gym at 7pm for all who wanted to come.

At Risk!, the Fair Grove High School Theater Program’s 2022 production, is a murder mystery set on the set of a game show. It was written by Alex Bates (12) and Cooper Zumwalt (11), two students in the program.

Before their play At Risk!, Zumwalt and Bates worked together to write the already performed middle school play Snow White and the Seven Suspects. Before At Risk! premiered, Zumwalt shared, “As one of the authors of the middle school play, I am extremely optimistic about our upcoming production. The audience responded very well to our comedy in the past, and I am excited to see their reactions to this production as well.” The response of Snow White And The Seven Suspects was a huge relief to the authors. “I fear that people won’t enjoy the content that I created, so I’m very anxious to hear what people think,” Bates voiced.

The middle school plays were performed on February 18th and 19th, leaving the high schoolers a small window to prepare for their own. “We’ve managed to put this production on extremely quickly. By the time we perform, we will only have had three weeks of rehearsal and time to get the set, props, and costumes together,” explained Zumwalt. In a normal performance, the theater kids would have had months to complete all of the work and have practices.

“It has taken a lot of hard work and we had to utilize every second of our rehearsals to ensure we are ready for our show,” Bates shared.

The three weeks that the high schoolers had were packed with practices to perfect their production. During practice, the group ran through the show while working out any problems that arose. At the end of rehearsals, they get notes from their directors on how they can improve.

With all of the work put in and practice perfecting their performance, for Zumwalt, putting on a production is the day that it all comes together and that’s his favorite part. “Oftentimes, when leading up to opening night, we have some rehearsals where it feels like what we are putting onstage is a train wreck,” Zumwalt revealed. “However, one day it all just clicks and comes together and the results are more than rewarding.”