SIGOURNEY – On March 21, 22 and 23, Sigourney High School put on performances of “Bad Auditions by Bad Actors” by Ian McWethy. The play starred Cera Hahn as a frustrated director and Ella Bahlmann as her assistant, who deal with an endless parade of terrible actors auditioning for “Romeo and Juliet,” including an aggressive weightlifter, an escaped convict, a method actor, a guy with a puppet, and more. The play featured Chris McLennan, Jolie Wehr, Karma Coble, Isaac Jones, Gracie Gillam, Cooper Hammes and Addison Richardson playing various auditionees. The play was directed by Devin Molenburg, with Eden Hahn working as a student director and Chloe Martin working backstage.
“I think it’s so much different than the ones I’ve done the last three years,” said Molenburg. “This one’s like super funny and super modern. So it was just a good switch-up for these kids.”
“I was in this play for the last two years, but I think I enjoyed this play the most,” said Freshman Chris McLennan. “It’s really fun.”
“It seemed interesting and it was definitely different,” said Junior Jolie Wehr.
“I think I just wanted to expand my horizons and explore new things,” said Junior Gracie Gillam.
“(I tried out) to try something and obviously keep going and having fun with it, because it’s really awesome,” said Sophomore Cooper Hammes.
The play’s small cast resulted in most of the cast playing multiple different characters. “I think it’s fun bouncing between characters and just pretending to be somebody else,” said Gillam.
“I feel like it’s been fairly easy,” said McLennan.
“I don’t know, I like it,” said Wehr.
“It’s been super fun seeing them do it, because you go from like, Jolie has one character who’s super into herself, and then the next one is this really sweet girl,” said Molenburg. “Cooper has some really ridiculous parts, and Isaac, I think he is going to be a crowd favorite, because every character Isaac Jones plays is somebody who is just crazy.”
“I think my favorite is when Cooper brings out his puppet, because it’s funny watching him backstage,” said Gillam.
“I think my favorite scene is my scene with Cooper where he yells at me a lot and basically tells me I’m doing everything wrong,” said Wehr.
“I think the biggest difficulty for this season has just been so much sickness,” said Molenburg. “We’ve had a surgery, we’ve had sickness, we’ve had a stem trip. It kinda worked out perfectly, with different roles, but it also kind of hurt us in some ways, that people weren’t all together at all times.”
“It’s been a little different memorizing all the different parts, but I like it that way,” said Gillam.
“I’d say the biggest challenge for me is sometimes it’s kind of hard to jump into different characters and like kind of switching I guess,” said Wehr.
“I don’t think there were any troubles I really had. I think it actually has just been really good,” said Hammes.
“My main trouble is that almost every part is absolutely hilarious and when I’m backstage, I just keep laughing, even though it’s very clear that I’m laughing,” said McLennan.
