Williamson: PHS play opens tonight

If this week’s election left you wishing for a dose of arsenic, you’re in luck. Portales High School is prepared to dish out enough to go around this weekend, complete with plenty of laughter.

Betty Williamson

A bit of good news

The curtain is scheduled to open at 7 p.m. tonight in the PHS Performing Arts Center, 201 S. Knoxville Street, on the high school production of “Arsenic and Old Lace,” a comedy from 1939 about two spinster sisters who lure lonesome, elderly, unsuspecting gentlemen into their home, and polish them off with poison elderberry wine before their delusional nephew, who thinks he is Theodore Roosevelt, buries them in the basement. Another nephew — who likes to believe he is the only sane one in this family of homicidal maniacs — stumbles into the mayhem.

This show marks the directorial debut of 2008 PHS graduate Heather Stroud Hagler. Heather was a familiar figure on PHS stages during her years as a student, but this is her first stage production since she was hired as the high school drama teacher in August.

“I adore being here,” she told me. “I love the staff and students here. They are encouraging and supportive, and I am lucky to have that because it helps me to love my job.”

That job has been all-consuming for Heather. Since this cast started rehearsing on Sept. 7, she has overseen about 160 hours of rehearsal time, and spent the last six Saturdays with her students hammering together a Victorian-style on-stage home for the zany Brewster family.

“This was my first set to build from scratch,” Heather said. “I had the knowledge from classes I had taken in college but I had never done it on my own. Knowing where to start was a little difficult, but I had some good help to get me rolling.”

That “good help” included life lessons learned from two former PHS teachers who were instrumental in Heather’s life and profession choice: former drama teacher Bill Strong and former choir director Franklin Smith.

“The majority of real life skills that I found that I really needed after high school,” Heather said, “I learned from those two men.”

Heather said she’s also been given a cast of “really talented and dedicated kids who love to be here.” The elements all combine for a production she thinks is well worth the two hours local theater-goers can expect to invest.

Curtain times are 7 p.m. tonight through Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday, but the house will open an hour ahead of each performance so you’ll have ample time to buy your $5 tickets at the door.

If, like the Brewsters, you can say that insanity not only runs in your family, “it practically gallops,” you’ll want to add this show to your weekend to-do list.

Betty Williamson suspects insanity gallops in most families. You may reach her at:

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