WHS Drama Club is presenting pair of one-act plays

The 100 Birthday celebratory season of the Wooster High School Drama Club continues this month as it presents two one-act plays, “The Bookstore” and “Our Place,” on March 14 and 15 at 7 p.m. and March 16 at 2 p.m.

According to adviser Brett Hiner, “The Bookstore” has been the plan since it was publicly announced last August; “Our Place” was a surprise addition.

“Upon reading ‘The Bookstore,’ we fell in love with the eccentric characters, both those who are employed at the bookstore, as well as its customers. It has been a wonderful group of characters to hang around with the last few months,” Hiner said. “However, after the success of ‘Annie’ last November, I felt the need to showcase even more of our group, so we added ‘Our Place’ as another one-act. It seemed fitting, given our 100 Birthday, to celebrate more of our gifted students but also play in two worlds at once.”

“The Bookstore” centers around Rachel (junior Ella McPhillips), whose aunt has just passed away and has gifted her a whimsical, almost magical bookstore. She has all intents to sell it to real estate developer Maxine Brewer (junior Lily Torrisi), but then she meets the bookstore manager Candace (senior Camryn Nelson), along with the diverse set of employees and customers. These include employees like Alexis (sophomore Lydia Dunlap), who can smell a customer and determine the best book recommendation for them, and customers like Mrs. Walters (junior Katie Snider), who only shops while wearing a gas mask.

Battling her own issues, professionally and personally, Rachel has a tough decision to make: sell the store and move permanently to New York to become a writer or take over ownership of the store and allow the quaint, idiosyncratic bookstore to remain.

Immediately following “The Bookstore” and intermission, the stage will be reset to allow for the cast/crew of “Our Place” to take center stage.

The “Our Place” story is told through a series of five vignettes, all unrelated but all taking place on a dock at a scenic lake. The power of the story, according to Hiner, will be in the audience’s ability to connect with the characters.

“Teenage love and its impulsiveness, a middle-aged daughter dealing with her ailing father, a dad who wants nothing more than to give his family a memorable vacation, these are short but wonderfully written stories that the students really had an emotional reaction to from the jump,” Hiner said. “I think our audience will too.”

Not lost on the cast and crew has been the initial thinking that the pair of one-act plays were completely unrelated, but through discussion and performance, a connection was found.

“The overall message of how one place can mean so many different things to people, whether it is a bookstore or a dock, is quite touching and true,” said Drama Club Co-president Melia Brown, a junior who portrays Beth in “Our Place.” “No matter what the reason drawing you to it is, if a place makes one feel safer, a sanctuary of sorts, then that is your place.”

For one weekend only, all three performances of “The Bookstore/Our Place” will take place in the Wooster High School Performing Arts Center. Tickets are $8 for students and senior citizens and $10 for adults. They can be purchased at the door or online by visiting www.ticketpeak.co/whsdrama.