One-act plays bringing comedy to Gilbert Paterson

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on May 11, 2022.

Herald photo by Alejandra Pulido-Guzman Gilbert Paterson drama students run through a scene from one of their upcoming performance, Game of Myths, Tuesday at the school's small gymnasium.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

Gilbert Paterson Middle School is gearing up to bring live theatre back to their school gymnasium next week with multiple performances of two comedic one-act plays.
Drama coordinator at Gilbert Paterson Tyler Leavitt, said Game of Myths takes Greek Gods and Goddesses and sets them in the 1980’s for a comical competition among them on who is the nicest to humans, while The Plucky Pie Murder: A Courtroom Comedy deals with a trial about a player on a football team being accused of murdering the team’s mascot.
“There’s some hilarity in some of the process and the evidence that’s presented. The fun thing is that the audience gets to decide the verdict, they become the jury and we will take an actual vote on each of our live shows to determine whether he is or is not guilty,” said Leavitt.
He said they have two endings prepared based on how the audience votes.
Leavitt said the play deals with stereotypes, while the students get to play them up.
“We’ve got our typical football players that are not the brightest people in the world, it’s a stereotype and I apologize to all football players out there,” said Leavitt.
He added that they have a typical coach, a very well prepared and well-spoken lawyer, a lawyer that’s not so well prepared and did not expect to take the trial to this length, a judge who is old and ready to retire and crotchety, and they have an assistant that is not too on the ball and brand new trying to learn the ropes.
“I’m not making any parallels to any current events, we just have all kinds of different characters that just run the gamut,” said Leavitt.
As for Game of Myths, director Naomi Froese said it is a twist on Greek Mythology after studying ancient Athens in Grade 6 and coming across the script.
“Instead of the traditional Greek mythology stories where we have the Greek gods being kind of jerks, we have a twist where they actually have to be nice and it is the comedy of errors of the Greek gods.”
Leavitt said the plays have come together in a short period of time, as they started rehearsing in March, which was cut short with Easter break in the middle of it.
“It’s been a short turn around trying to get this up and running because we wanted to do one with a live audience,” said Leavitt.
Show dates are May 16 to 19 at 7 p.m. each evening. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for rush seating.
Tickets are on sale at SchoolCashOnline which is open to the public for $7.

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