The Becker High School drama team has decided to put together a spring play that is unusual, quirky, semi-original and off the wall.

 

Hence the title, “Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind.”

 

Director Joe Rand proposed the idea to his drama students of putting together a group of short plays to be produced in about an hour. It’s sort of like an improv situation and the show requires some audience participation.

 

“Too Much...” has been produced before and currently is the longest running show in Chicago and the only open-run, off-off-Broadway show in New York.

 

Rand said he was involved in this type of show when he attended high school at Centennial several years ago.

 

Rand tasked his bright students to come up with ideas for 2-to-3 minute short plays to be played out on stage in front of a limited number of audience members. Thirty of these short plays will be given numbers and audience members get to decide in what order the plays are conducted by yelling out the corresponding digit for each particular act.

 

“This is new, something completely different than what we typically do,” said Rand. “Each of the skits has a hook, or something that’ll make the audience think about.”

 

Five of the 30 skits were originally written by several students, who got most of their inspiration for the plays from interactions with one another, “Writing comedy is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” said student Carly Pruszinske. “I’ve looked at plays before and observed the students interactions with each other and just came up with ideas.”

 

Sarenity Klein and Emily Krogstad co-wrote one of the skits and auditioned the short play for acceptance into the production.

 

“We are really excited about our play and all the plays in this show,” said Krogstad. “When we first found out Joe (Rand) wanted to do this, we were all asking, ‘How is he gonna do this?’ None of us had done anything like this before.”

 

“With the quick transitions and not knowing what play gets chosen by the audience and in what order, makes the play unique and fun,” Klein said. “It was so much fun making this whole production our own with our own ideas.”

 

Rand says 125 audience members will be on stage with the actors sitting on chairs in a semi-circle. When a number is suggested, the actors involved in that skit will jump up from their seats and get in position to conduct the three-minute sketch.

 

“The kids have loved this idea for a play and are extremely excited to perform,” said Rand. “They are growing a lot and its fun when they work together to make decisions and suggestions.”

 

The cast consists of Sarenity Klein, Emily Krogstad, Carly Pruszinske, Gabrielle Proefrock, Samantha Pounds, William Schendel and others.

 

Not all the skits are comedy and some have adult content and thus the play is not recommended for children under 12 years of age.

 

The play will run May 5 at 7 p.m., May 6 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. and May 7 at 2 p.m. at the BHS Performing Arts Center. Pre-sale tickets are $8 for adults, $6 for students and seniors and those with a military ID. Go to www.becker.k12.mn.us to buy the tickets.

 

Tickets will be sold at the door but because of limited seating, guests are encouraged to come early and the cost is another $3 for a roll of a die to get a seat.