On april 29th and 30th the AHS Theatre department performed their opening shows of The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940  by John Bishop in the auditorium of AHS.

The opening scene started off with a masked man (Sarah Woodward) who murders Elsa’s maid, Helsa Wenzel (Maya Koch). Shortly after her murder, main characters Elsa (Sasha Cameron) and Sergeant Kelly (AJ Walker) are introduced having a conversation without realizing that the maid has been murdered and locked in the closet by the mysterious masked man. 

The following day, Elsa’s guests arrived to her house in New York for the musical audition of White House Merry-go-Round. One of the first guests to arrive are an Irish singer named Patrick O’Reilly,  Eddie McCuen (Ricardo Pereira),  a comedian and NIkki Crandall (Emily Trachsel), a typical chorus girl. Shortly after, the rest of Elsa’s guests arrived. Producer of White House Merry-Go-Round Roger Hopewell (William Rangel Cardozo), Hollywood director Ken De La Maize (Kyle Dalsimer), Broadway producer Marjorie Baverstock (Holly Ramia) and Roger’s partner, Bernice Roth (Annie Stout).

In the middle of the characters conversation,  Helsa (who was previously murdered in the opening act) appeared again although her personality was more violent  throughout the play.

Later on in the play, Eddie realizes that all of Elsa’s guests were involved in a production of a play in which three women were murdered, scared Eddie tried to leave but was later persuaded by everyone to stay.

While the leading singers rehearsed their song, the power went out and Marjorie was stabbed with a sword by the masked man.

Towards the end of the play, many revelations and identities are revealed.  Patrick O’Reilly was not an Irish singer but an spy that was sent to find German defectors and Nikki was an undercover U.S. Naval Intelligence officer who was looking for Germans who were to sabotage Americans during WWII. Patrick is later killed and it also revealed that Helza was not really her but her twin brother. Helsa’s twin brother revealed to the characters that the wenzel’s are triplets. As the play came to an end,  the other triplet katrina showed up to Elsa’s house.

After the show ended, students at AHS were happy by the actors charisma and production.

“I thought the play was very funny. I thought they did a great job” senior Luca Anescu said, I came to the play because one of my friends was acting in the play so I wanted to come and support him,” Anescu said.   

Students from the Theatre department were thrilled with their productions and their peers’ performance as well.

“I really liked being able to get into the character of Kent because he is so fun to be, freshman Kyle Dalsimer said, I think it was actually really amazing having to worked with some of the juniors and seniors who have been here for a longer time and just really talented,” Dalsimer said.

Actors from the Theatre department discuss how hard everyone in the production worked.

“The preparation took about two and half months. Just constant rehearsal, every other day we were called for scene blocking and then it started to get really intense because we were called every single day until six o’clock,” junior William Rangel Cardozo said.

The Annandale Theatre department will be playing three more shows on May fifth, sixth, and seventh  at seven PM. Tickets will be sold during all lunches for eight dollars and ten dollars at the door.