Winner of the 2015 Laurence Olivier Best Comedy Award, “The Play That Goes Wrong” was brought to the Hill as our first play of the 2024 school year. From Nov. 2nd to the 4th, packed audiences were thrilled with a performance that never went quite as planned. Now, Theater on the Hill is making strides toward its future.
“The Play That Goes Wrong” has stunned audiences since 2012, including Theater Director Carli Wilkerson. As the theater program has been built up since her arrival in 2017, progressively more demanding enterprises have been undertaken. Through major life changes and an ever-shifting cast, Wilkerson shows no sign of slowing down.
“It is one of the funniest plays I have ever seen,” said Wilkerson. “I knew we had the talent here at Clover Hill.”
Even before the curtain was drawn, attendees were immersed in the drama’s havoc. Dashing around the stage and forum, actors searched for Winston the Dog in a panic. Actors interacted with audiences during the scramble to find their canine cast member, showing participants pictures and descriptions of Winston.
“I have never done something like that,” said Wilkerson. “Having them out talking [with the audience] was really unique for me.”
Exceeding the challenging depictions of rural Russia or an enchanted forest, “The Play That Goes Wrong” has been the most difficult set produced by Theater on the Hill. Featuring spinning bookshelves and a set that tears itself apart before being reconstructed, the elevated heights established by set designer Mac Coralene are hard to exaggerate.
“The set was quite literally tied to the walls,” said Wilkerson. “We had someone running and pushing them down.”
Seeing hands spontaneously punch through the set walls, before they ultimately slam down wasn’t easy to pull off. Senior Jupiter Blanks was able to see the process unfold into success.
“[The stage hands] had to choreograph when the walls would fall down, how the walls would fall down,” said Blanks. “They were not fragile, but if you did not untie them right it would not fall right. The set breaking was really funny.”
Even with the purposeful errors, there were times “The Play That Goes Wrong” … went wrong.
“The handcuffs exploded,” said Wilkerson. “[Junior Joshua Corallino] was pulling on them, like he always had been. And then, all of a sudden, they just went *boom* and all the pieces started falling apart.”
With some small errors, like junior Maddox Barnes’ uncontrollable sideburns, the unique nature of “The Play That Goes Wrong” made for its own trials.
“Other shows are much more cut and dry,” said Barnes. “The set is static and just exists to be a set, set the scene of where you are … this one really required a deeper understanding of the characters and their motives throughout the show.”
Even with paramount safety, mistakes meant enduring a strenuous show.
“Gena, the girl who plays Annie, is meant to get knocked out by the door,” said Barnes. “She puts her hand in front of her forehead for the door to hit her hand, but she did not put her hand up in time, so during that bit, on one of the show nights, the door just hits her in the face … she is meant to be passed out on the floor, so that was not hard to play that night.”
Despite humorous mishappenings, precision was still key in their performance. For a production of this caliber, the accuracy of the cast was essential.
“If something does actually go wrong,” said Wilkerson. “That can mess up the queue where things fall … any missing of lines is a problem. And at the end, they did go off on their lines, and some of them missed them, and luckily nothing happened, but that could have been an actual problem.”
Now, Theater on the Hill is preparing for its competitive one-act plays. Tonight, Theater on the Hill fans will have “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play” and “Billy Shakespeare’s Christmas Extravaganza and Traveling Freak Show” presented. Then, to conclude the year, the theater program will put on its annual play. For 2024, audiences will be enthralled by Chicago.
“It was very gratifying putting the show on,” said Barnes. “There were so many interlocking parts that could actually go wrong. We had to make sure the going wrong – looked right.”
Savannah Kleidosty • Oct 31, 2024 at 2:26 pm
As someone who is a part of Theater on the Hill now, this play was the play that made me actually want to participate more actively in the productions. Seeing how much fun everyone was having while performing while also seeing how passionate everyone involved was made me even more interested than I was before. I definitely think that this was one of the best first shows to watch as an introduction to what Theater on the Hill.