From left: Daniel Oliveri, Adrian Knappertz, Shannon Rymut and Sam Lustig rehearse a scene during a dress rehearsal on March 5, 2024. (Courtesy of RDGPhoto)
CU Presents is performing “The Play That Goes Wrong,” a comedy by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Roe Green Theatre from March 8 through March 17, with no show on March 14 or 15, due to weather. This unorthodox production showcases the trials and tribulations of the fictional Cornley University Drama Society as they try to put on a play-within-the-play, “The Murder at Haversham Manor.”
“It is the most sincere community theater trying to put on a murder mystery that they are not equipped to put on,” said Kaitlin Nabors, the show’s director and a theater Ph.D. candidate at CU Boulder. “These characters so badly want to put on this play, and it just does not want to happen.”
While the actual happenings within the play are closely guarded secrets (to not spoil the surprises,) the actors involved say that the comedy’s manufactured mishaps are no joke.
“The rehearsal process has been great, there’s a lot of dangerous things that happen – like, actual dangerous things,” said Wulfgar Parmenter, who plays the fictional actor Robert, or ‘Thomas Colleymore’ in the murder mystery. “We’ve worked really hard to make sure it’s safe.”
Adrian Knappertz (top left) and Sam Lustig push Roan Cochrane off a bench onstage during a dress rehearsal on March 5, 2024. (Courtesy of RDGPhoto)
Shannon Rymut, playing the fictional stage manager Annie who must unexpectedly understudy ‘Florence Colleymore’ in the fake play, highlights the plot-driven perils that characters must overcome in their grueling trudge through a hostile, all-but-malicious theater experience.
“Everything go[es] horribly, horribly wrong, to the point that many people are ‘injured’ with multiple concussions by the end of the show,” Rymut said. “This is such a crazy and hectic show, and honestly it’s been one of my favorites to work on in my career.”
“The Play That Goes Wrong” highlights, in a hyperbolic, meta way, what the process of putting on a production is actually like for theater professionals – the peril, chaos, colleague stereotypes and pure grit that is involved. When the personalities of the ‘actors’ briefly shine through their murder-mystery characters in moments of peril onstage, they genuinely reflect the sincerity and determination of real actors everywhere.
“It’s care and optimism. We all understand it, being actors and being in theater. We all want to put on the best show that we can,” said Edie Roth, who plays Sandra, ‘Florence Colleymore’s’ original actress. “We as humans do, and then we as the actors in the show, putting on ‘The Murder at Haversham Manor,’ do. I think that reads through to the very last moment – everything’s falling apart, but we still want people to like it!”
Roan Cochrane (top left) and Sam Lustig hoist Edie Roth through a window onstage during a dress rehearsal on March 5, 2024. (Courtesy of RDGPhoto)
“This is much more dramatic than it actually is,” Roth continued. “I’ve definitely met people who are like, the controlling director, or the actor who knows their pedagogy and thinks they’re perfect. We’ve definitely had the chaos before. I think it’s rooted in truth but taken to the extreme.”
This production has been a labor of love. From thoroughly choreographed brawl scenes to carefully rehearsed dangerous happenings onstage, it provides a peek ‘backstage’ and puts on full display the raw gumption of the world’s unluckiest community theater, and indeed, performers everywhere.
The final showing of “The Play That Goes Wrong” is March 17 at 2 p.m. in the Roe Green Theatre. Tickets are $27. More information can be found here.
Contact CU Independent Arts and Entertainment Editor Grace Ptak at Grace.Ptak@colorado.edu.
