RCHS actors leave school with a laugh
Bria Pellandini (left) and Guillermo Arribas
Article and photo by Lisa Crockett
A group of high school seniors who have spent the last four years on the stage at Rock Canyon High School (RCHS) is preparing their grand finale – their last play before graduation. The play, “Beyond a Joke,” will run at the school for three days in May, just a week before the seniors in the cast graduate.
“I have done plays at Rock Canyon for the four years I’ve been here and it’s been great,” said graduating senior Alex Rowe. “When you do a play here, there’s such a familial environment – I really love the people who do drama.”
Rowe, who plays the hapless fiancé, Geof, in the play, was honored at this year’s state Thespian Convention and will head to Dartmouth College in the fall. He plans to major in engineering. The play is a comedy of errors, written “sit-com” style.
“The play features an unlucky family who happens to have had several people accidentally die on their property,” said RCHS’s drama teacher, Cindy Baker. “Since it’s becoming an embarrassment, the family decides to keep the secret from their daughter’s new fiancé and his folks, who nonetheless come across one of the hapless victims and presume the worst.”
In addition to Rowe, this small-cast comedy features fellow high-school theater veterans who are all about to graduate: Guillermo Arribas, Bria Pelladini, Alex Tuccy and Daniel Wheeler.
“Doing a play like this with a such a small group is a lot of fun because we’re such great friends,” said Arribas, who will head to either NYU or the University of Michigan to major in theater in the fall. “It’s not as complicated as some of the bigger productions we’ve done and we can get in and learn our lines and figure out what we want to do quickly.”
“Beyond a Joke” will play from May 13-15 at the RCHS Auditorium. Admission for the play is $5 at the door; theater doors open at 6:30 p.m. 
