At about 9 o’clock Thursday morning, several hundred students filed into the FEMA room for a performance of Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery. They are buzzing and shifting in their seats, humming with energy. Backstage, there is a similar hum, the cast stands in one room, doing makeup and joking around. On one side of the room you can see Randy Davenport, transforming from a high school senior into Doctor John Watson, general surgeon, by taping on his mustache. The rest of the cast stretches out, in all somewhere in the stages between character and regular person. Then, suddenly, the show begins. The curtain is drawn open and a crowd watches Sir Charles Baskerville die. John Watson tells them that the story starts with ‘simplicity itself’ and a mystery is well on it’s way.
The show itself is a mystery/comedy, blending slapstick and suspense. It follows Watson, Sherlock, and a host of others along a trail of murder and intrigue on the English moors. They use accents and punchlines to unravel a curse on a family stretching across generations. It is based on the Hound of the Baskervilles. The young audience laughs and gasps along, cheering in the way only middle schoolers can at an onstage kiss. Mrs. Mary Alexander, the director, tells the cast after that she is hearing very positive reviews from students and teachers alike. This is only a test performance, gearing up for a weekend of shows. Two months of nearly nightly rehearsal was going to pay off in three days.
The process to creating a show is as winding and seemingly endless as a Holmes mystery. Learning lines, how and when to move, which side of the stage to enter on, and countless other small tasks took time and energy. It is also full of laughs and surprises. Different ways to say lines are abundant, and can change a scene dynamic. Costumes add a whole other layer to a show, solidifying it and providing a shift between character and person. With everything happening all at once, by the last week, nearly everyone is exhausted. It felt good, to be done with the line memorizing and the cues, but it was also bittersweet. For four of the most central characters, it was their final show. In a speech to the cast on their last night, Randy Davenport said it was ‘probably the funniest show’ he’d done at the high school. Ben Siglin thanked everyone for making it fun and pulling together a show they were proud of. The circle of kids whispered jokes and reassurance at each other, smiling and squeezing hands. Two months before, several of them had been friendly, or loose acquaintances, but by the last show, it felt like a community. We had held together through a long process and were about to come out on the other side, some for the first time and some for the last. People whispered last words of encouragement, and then it was showtime. While it is almost impossible for a show to happen without mistakes, Baskerville was as drama-free as a drama production got.
Each of the three shows was completed with only minor mishaps, and the cast all felt it had gone very well. Mrs. Alexander agreed, telling the cast and crew how proud she was of them over pizza on Sunday. It was a fun and funny show, and each audience was very positive. Though there are times when putting on a show gets difficult, the end feels elementary, my dear Watson.
