Night of The Living Dead: A Killer Performance

Retaining its element of individualism, the theatre department produced their version of “Night of The Living Dead” this Halloween weekend.

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“Night of The Living Dead” is a bittersweet production for some of these seniors whom may not return for the spring musical.

From October 29th through the 31st, the theatre department at Jones presented its audience with a unique, and surprisingly family-friendly, rendition of “Night of The Living Dead”, which fulfilled its promise of being full of zombies, blood, and gore- everything one needs for Halloween weekend.

A great deal of preparation was necessary in order to live up to the high expectations put on by the past fall plays. However, this group of students attempted what seemed impossible- to produce a play that incorporated forty people within a matter of about a month.

Their goal from the beginning was to put on the show during Halloween weekend, which might have been stressful to some, but this group kept their cool and let the show go on. Seth Bartusek ‘17 recalls on rehearsals as “amazing. It’s time consuming but it doesn’t feel like it because we’re all just enjoying each other’s company and joking around.”

Blood and gore were a controversial crowd-grabber and what was most aesthetically rewarding for the audience. Yet setting up the costumes and face paint made “Night of The Living Dead” that much more difficult to star in. Isabel Ebeid ‘17 enjoyed the creative process. “It was a lot of tearing stuff up and dying it, so it was really fun” Ebeid says.

As unique as this play was in being the first of the genre in Jones history, it was a hit-or-miss decision to have it go on during Halloween weekend; either there was a crazy crowd because of the theme or no one would be present.

The anguish was always present for the actors as Ebeid addressed. “There’s always that idea that people aren’t going to come in the back of your head, but I feel like a lot of people come out and support the shows no matter what time of the year it is.” However, she and the rest of the cast remained hopeful that their hard work would not go unrecognized.

For seniors not participating in the spring musical, this was their last time being a part of a JCP theatre production. With a group of about forty cast members, seniors had the third-highest number of members in the play behind juniors and sophomores. Of course, this does have a correlation with the increase of class sizes as the years go by.

According to Isabel Ebeid ‘17, departure is just part of showbiz. “In theater you will almost never have the exact same cast in two shows, so you become used to goodbyes and endings.”

With that being said, Ebeid also believes that these seniors were a special group and will continue to prosper in their theatrical careers. “Taking the last bow with the seniors was hard, but they will have so many more beginnings and exciting experiences that I can’t help but be nothing but happy for them.”