‘The Play That Goes Wrong’

Ashwaubenon students took to the stage Thursday for opening night of their spring play, The Play That Goes Wrong.

The play is co-directed by students Claire Beyers and Emmalee Keisler and features a show within a show.

“Our show is a murder mystery,” Beyers said. “The cast is playing as cast members of a different show. It’s a play within a play, basically. The budget of their show isn’t very big and in history, their shows have gone wrong. But they’re very confident that this performance is going to be the one that goes greatly. Throughout the show, they face a lot of setbacks and there’s a lot of mistakes. Basically the whole play goes wrong.”

Through a series of mishaps, audiences will be treated to a show that’s packed with comedy in ways they may not expect.

“It’s not just physical comedy,” Keisler said. “There’s jokes with the lines, but then things fall apart and you get to see the reactions to that. It’s so intertwined.”

“It’s a lot of unexpected things as well,” Beyers said. “Audiences aren’t used to seeing a show like this with a lot of stuff on stage that could fall over — a lot of people don’t expect that to happen in a normal show and it’s something people don’t get to see on a normal basis. It’s definitely unique.”

As student directors, Beyers and Keisler are responsible for most of the decision making that goes into putting on a show.

“We do have help from adults, but we basically did get to make all of the major decisions for this show,” Beyers said. “It’s a lot of decision making and a lot of aspects you have to consider. There’s a lot of organization involved. It’s definitely challenging, but it’s cool to be able to have a bigger part in a show like this.”

But within that decision making responsibility, there was space for Beyers and Keisler to add their own personal touches to the play.

“We kind of made our own Easter eggs within the show,” Beyers said. “For example, the painting [on the mantle] is my dog. And since this is a comedy show, we got to play around with the lines and we got to change some things.

It’s really cool to see our own ideas in a performance and how they hit with audiences.”

“The crew had a lot of fun when we made the bookshelf and all the books because we added our own little jokes there,” Keisler said.

For those planning on attending the show, Keisler and Beyers suggest coming in prepared to have fun.

“It’s not a serious show, so nothing’s meant to be taken seriously,” Keisler said. “If you try to take this show too seriously, it’s not fun anymore.”

Additional performances of The Play That Goes Wrong will take place Saturday, April 11, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, April 12 at 2 p.m.

More information and tickets are available at ashwaubenonpac.org.