Yellow Pages
The great minds through the ages have pondered what happens when life ends.
Anacortes High School drama students take up that eternal conversation in their new play, inquisitively titled “After Life?”, which examines the topic in a series of serious and comic vignettes.
“It’s about heaven and hell. It’s a collection of stories around them,” said drama student Mila Zotova.
“There’s a variety of fun and poignant pieces,” said director and drama teacher Scott Burnett.
Performances are 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday, May 28 and 29, at Brodniak Hall. Admission is free, but donations are gratefully accepted, Burnett said. Some of the topics are mature.
In one piece, gatekeepers of the afterlife try to figure out what to do with a masochist who died under suspicious circumstances. Should she be sentenced to suffer with pitchforks and flames — if she likes it?
In another piece, a woman is condemned to carry the weighty secrets of other people because of the secrets she kept in life. There’s a same-sex couple who confront their beliefs as they wait in limbo. There is a rap, a Dr. Seuss spin off and a counseling session with God. The Sunpockets, a pair of happy, hippie folk singers, swing between heaven and hell as they sing cheerful tunes and confront personal secrets.
Some of the stories are about here and now, such as “Marriage is Hell” and “Hellish Date.” In the latter, a man with no car, no job and restraining orders from former wives — and who is feeling a little frisky — has a date with a recently divorced woman with several kids who just lost 100 pounds and is newly pledged to celibacy.
“All these pieces center on the idea of heaven and hell,” Burnett said. “Some of them center on the hell we make of our lives.”
The play was produced by advanced drama students, all juniors and seniors, who started working on it several months ago. Along the way, the text was refined and trimmed.
“They’ve done many, many rewrites. It’s been their show the whole way,” Burnett said.
The cast is Laura Andrich, Samuel Askey, Amanda Chord, Hayley Davidson, Erin Dolan, Danielle Ferguson, Ariel Gould, Connie Grimnes, Jocelyn Guarino, Mairi Hartsock, Hannah Holtgeerts, Jillian Johnson, Mackenzie Larkin, Patrick Lyons, Molly Maddock, Maika Mattson, Sarah Moses Winyard, Sarah Muehe, Kirsten Mullen, Emma Ochs, Shane Phipps, Taylor Powers, Nicholas Thompson and Lyudmila Zotova.
