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Spring Production

Subhead
Luverne students set to perform 'Gumshoe High' Friday and Saturday
Lead Summary
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By
Mavis Fodness

Tricks and tomfoolery will be performed on stage during Luverne High School’s performance of “Gumshoe High: A Totally Teen Mystery” Friday, April 1, and Saturday, April 2, in the high school auditorium.
A student suggestion led spring play director Sharon Boltjes to select a similar genre as the second play Boltjes had ever directed, “Lucky Dollar.”
“It was a fun play,” she recalled.
Thirty students are involved in Boltjes’ most recent production.
Both performances begin at 7:30 p.m.
The play models the reading of a dime-store detective novel complete with various chapters (scene changes) set up by “pages.”
Freshman Sadie Kindt plays Chapter; classmate Grace Sweeney is Glossary and freshman Brianna Jonas is Index. They announce and bring props on and off stage for the various scene changes.
The scenes center around three areas: main character Drexton Cage’s office that is a janitor’s closet in Chandler High School, at Hammet High School (home to the opposing IQ-decathlon team) and in an alley for meeting Fred Backwards (sophomore Donald Ray), Cage’s tight-lipped underworld connection.
The story opens with the Humphrey Bogart-like high school detective Drexton (portrayed by senior Paul Witte III) in one-in-one conversations with the audience. Cage instructs viewers to try to figure out what information is real and what is make-believe in the clever story involving a simple frame job that quickly becomes a tangled web of intrigue.
Cage is convinced by the mysterious femme fetale Carmen Hardstone (played by sophomore Megan Rogers) to clear the name of an IQ-decathlete/boyfriend Abner Johnson (freshman Michael Kinsinger). Johnson was expelled from Chandler High School for supposedly stealing test answers.
Cage interviews various characters to find out who framed Abner. He eventually narrows the possible suspects to the real thief, who is a decathlon team member.
Chandler decathlon team members include Reginald Wellington III (senior Brandon Claussen), Electra who is also Reginald’s girlfriend (senior Katerina Siebert), Cloris (junior Carly Serie) and Patience (sophomore Emma Verbrugge), who is the team’s newest member with Abner’s absence.
Decathlon members of Hammet include Smilin’ Bob (junior Josh Schoneman), Giggles Fontaine (sophomore Ashlee Boltjes), Parker Roberts (senior Emily Wendland), and Sincere Thatcher (junior Aidan Bartels).
Annabell Petronek, a junior, is assistant director.
The play is about 90 minutes in length and includes an intermission.
Concessions will be available both before the play and at intermission.
There is a charge for the play performances.

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