Play sends students back to the classroom

By MITCH MAERSCH

Ozaukee Press staff

As long as they’re acting or designing and building sets, Cedar Grove-Belgium High School students are OK with going to school after school.

The fall play, “Usual Suspects,” is set in a high school, but similarities to the students’ regular day stop right around there.

The plot for the action-packed comedy has four high school students trying to take down an angry principal who has been trying to catch students making trouble.

Getting into character was more of a stretch for some than others.

Mya Claerbaut, daughter of co-director Dave Claerbaut, said she plays a “nerd and goody two-shoes.”

“She is herself,” one actor said.

“It kinda fits,” her father said with a laugh.

“Hey, you raised me, so...” his daughter said.

Allie Jaworski plays a valley girl who refers to herself in the third person. She said she throws several “likes” into her dialogue and is inspired by Cher Horowitz in “Clueless.”

Zoey Vance Poropat plays a “little bit of a bad girl” who likes rock and roll and heavy metal.

“Whenever I think of my character, I do think a little bit of Eddie Munson from ‘Stranger Things,’” she said.

She wore a T-shirt with the name of a famous band on it at Tuesday’s dress rehearsal.

“I do know who the Grateful Dead are,” she said.

Jocks from Disney Channel movies inspired Ryan Fleuchaus to play “kind of a jock, but I created the operation. I’m the brains of it,” he said.

“I recruited all these people, and I’m trying to take down the principal.”

The target of the students’ scheme is Jenna Emperley, who said she based her character on the principal in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

“Our play is basically ‘The Breakfast Club’ if it was a heist movie,” she said.

Inspiration also came from Emperley’s daily life. A banana may make an appearance since one is eaten every day at lunch by the principal of a local high school.

Emperley’s character is “always mad at something and always trying to catch someone doing something wrong,” she said.

Emperley had to memorize more than 200 lines in a stack of notecards a few inches thick. She used every minute she had to prepare.

“Sometimes in class instead of doing homework I would be going over my lines just so I was ready for the day and ready to give it my all,” she said.

She practiced getting into character at school.

“I’ve been going up to Mya in the hallway, ‘You wanna go, girl?’” she said as she walked up to Claerbaut and went chest to chest with her.

“It’s pretty fun,” Claerbaut said.

They said they’re not sure if other students catch on that their act is fake.

The play’s sets were designed and built by stage managers Quinn Schmidt and Zoey Weiland, who didn’t have to look far for props.

“We actually went to some places in the school and just took stuff,” Schmidt said, adding she told whoever was in charge why items were being relocated to the stage.

Schmidt got the script in September, read it a couple of times and then started working on designs with Weiland.

Figuring out the necessary materials wasn’t difficult.

“Most plays are pretty good with the cues they put in,” she said.

This set called for walls, which were easy. Schmidt and Weiland have built walls for other plays and know how to put together and support the structures, along with fastening them to one another.

The set took about two weeks to build. Then they hung artwork on the walls. They did their work while the actors rehearsed.

“I think it’s fun to build it and see what you have built,” Schmidt said.

“I like when we paint stuff and design that stuff in particular. One year we had to cut foam out into objects,” Weiland said.

During performances, the pair sit in back and spring into action in case of an emergency, such as a prop breaking.

Dave Claerbaut said this play is the last in the middle school auditorium before it gets upgraded with money from the spring referendum. Kimberly Gall is the co-director.

Performances are at 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 2, and Saturday, Dec. 3. Tickets are $5 at the door.