An hour or two full of suspense and mystery is what the Manhattan High drama department will be delivering to the audience on April 19-21 as they perform their very own play, Rehearsal for Murder.

“The play is about a group of people that are a company of players that are in the broadway theater,” producer Linda Uthoff, drama teacher, said.”The leading lady has died the night after opening night, when the play receives some bad reviews, so everybody thinks she killed herself. Then her boyfriend who was the writer of the play suspected that she did not kill herself. His effort is to bring everyone in the play back together and acts like they’re going to do a new play. During this process he pretty much tries to pin it on one of the actors.”

The play is being guest directed by David Olington, the choreographer from The Drowsy Chaperone. It features two lead roles: the boyfriend of the woman who supposedly killed herself, Alex Dennison played by senior Wesley Danielson, and the woman who supposedly killed herself, Monica Wells played by sophomore Marlena Hummel.  

“I would say being one of the lead roles is stressful, but I’m also very happy at the same time, getting a lead role was of my goals,” Hummel said. “I’m going to play as well as I can. I’ve been getting ready by memorizing all of my lines and all of my scenes, I have a lot of one on one scenes with other characters and it’s mostly keeping at it not delaying or stopping.”

The play has been a work in progress ever since the drama department finished performing Peter and the Starcatcher. The drama department started casting for this play right after. The casting for the play was decided by Uthoff and Olington together.  

“I would say that the auditions were even more stressful than it is right now,” Hummel said. “You’re up in front of everyone and you know that everyone is going to want the role you want, and you couldn’t read Mr. Olington’s  face, so you couldn’t tell if you were doing good or bad.”

The play also requires a backstage crew and volunteers for tech. The drama department is accepting any volunteer who wants be a part of the play and help out backstage up until the end of next week. To volunteer contact Uthoff to see what cane be done to help out.