By Casey Jarmes | The News-Review
KEOTA – On Nov. 4 and 5, Keota High School students performed “A Very Bad Day for Brandon Butterworth,” a one act play written by Scott Haan. The play starred Peyton Baughman, Dakota Dodd and Kennedy Jackson as three women who all discover they are dating the titular Butterworth, a philandering photographer played by Luke Moeller. After the women discover Butterworth’s cheating, they decide to get back at him by all meeting at the same coffee shop at the same time, forcing him to scramble to keep them from running into each other. Rounding out the cast were Grayson Sprouse as the coffee shop’s barista and Rowen Horning as an aggressive biker who gets into a fight with Butterworth.
The play was directed by long-time Keota drama coach Jane Edwards. This play is set to be the second-to-last directed by Edwards, who plans to say goodbye to drama after the spring play and retire, after 51 years of teaching and roughly 70-80 different plays over the years. The fall play featured a small cast, consisting of three freshman and three seniors. Edwards stated this was due to students being busy with sports, working, or wanting to play on their phones instead. She stated that she would have done a second one-act play this fall if more kids tried out, but that the play went really well and that she enjoyed the small cast. Edwards stated that she picked this play in particular due to its twist ending, where it is revealed that Dodd and Jackson’s characters are not in fact dating Butterworth, and instead pretending to date him as part of a scheme to scare of Baughman’s character, an aggressive stalker. “I’ve never had a play take me a complete 180 that way. That’s why I picked it,” said Edwards.
The cast were able to work on the play only one night a week, over the course of ten weeks. Horning was cast in the play last minute, only two weeks before showtime, after the original actor playing his part was marked ineligible. The date of the play was also changed last minute, to accomadate one of the cast members getting her wisdom teeth out.
“This group was so easy to work with, A: because they’re so small, B: because they’ve all done it before. Luke would come from cross country, and Kennedy would come from volleyball, and they just were all flexible and made it work,” said Edwards.
Moeller and Sprouse noted that they loved their one-on-one argument scenes. Dodd stated she loved the play’s twist. Baughman stated that she loved Horning’s character and that she got to throw water on Moeller.
“We didn’t get many practices in, but for what we’ve got, it’s pretty good so far,” said Moeller.
“It’s been going great. We’ve had a really fun group to work with,” said Dodd.
“The freshman are pretty cool, they get the job done, so I can’t complain,” said Moeller.
“And the seniors are obviously a lot more experienced than us, so everyone’s bringing a different energy. It’s been very easy to learn because the seniors are patient,” said Sprouse.
“They help direct us to what we need to learn,” said Horning.
“Yeah, the freshman are pretty good, so it’s not a whole bunch of teaching we have to do, because it just kinda comes natural for them,” said Dodd.
“There’s a lot of one on one acting involved, so that’s always interesting,” said Moeller.
“I would say my character is pretty gunny to play. He’s quite snarky. That’s his main personality. So it’s very fun to act out,” said Sprouse.
“My character is very loud. I get to yell, so it’s pretty fun,” said Horning.
“My character’s pretty fun. It’s not really how I am in real life, so it’s pretty fun just to act differently than how I would normally,” said Dodd.
“Obviously, everyone’s worried about missing a line of two, but with this play, I think it’s just easy. If you do miss something, you can just run right over it, continue on. The story just keeps flowing anyway,” said Moeller.
“Sometimes it’s a little difficult, because there is funny parts, and you have to try not to laugh when you’re on stage, which I struggled with a little bit, but it’s just really fun,” said Dodd.
