CHHS Theater Department to present original play
Published 2:00 am Thursday, October 1, 2015
![MESSENGER PHOTO/JAINE TREADWELL Young love, true love are a part of the landscape of a small Southern town where mystery also lurks. Hannah Jordon and Dalton Gross play the roles of a young couple in love in the upcoming CHHS Theater production on Oct. 6, 8 and 10.](https://www.troymessenger.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2015/09/10-1-CHHS-DRAMA-pic-one.web_-300x170.jpg)
MESSENGER PHOTO/JAINE TREADWELL
Young love, true love are a part of the landscape of a small Southern town where mystery also lurks. Hannah Jordon and Dalton Gross play the roles of a young couple in love in the upcoming CHHS Theater production on Oct. 6, 8 and 10.
The Charles Henderson High School Theatre will present an original play, ‘The Clouds Always Pass,” by Judith Park, CHHS theatre teacher and play director.
The show will premiere on October 6, 8, and 10, at The Studio in downtown Troy.
The doors will open at 6:30 p.m. and the show will start at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for children and students.
Tickets will be available beginning Monday at the CHHS main office, from any cast member or at the door.
Park said the one-act play takes place in a small Mayberry-kind of town in the 1960s.
“It’s a simple, Southern play that is a love story with a little mystery mixed in,” Park said. “It’s based loosely on my grandparents’ lives. I always loved to sit and listen to them talk and tell stories about when they were growing up. My granddad has a grocery store and my dad worked for him at the Busy Bee. I used that name and some of the street names and business names in the play and some of their stories like when he met my grandmother so, in a way, ‘The Clouds Always Pass’ is true to life.”
Park said she did take a few liberties with the script.
“My grandparents were born in the 1930s and the play is set 30 years later,” she said. “I did that because, in the play, one of the characters goes off to war and I wanted it to be Vietnam. And, in the play, a mother worked out of town and she probably would not have done that in the 1930s.”
Park said she didn’t want to give too much of the plot away but did say that vandalism strikes the normally quiet, peaceful town. A pastor becomes involved, a young couple falls in love and the townspeople become detectives bent on solving the crimes in the town.
![MESSENGER PHOTO/JAINE TREADWELL Cast members Nelsey Leverette, left, and Reagan Gross are as busy as bees both a work and in trying to unravel a mystery that has engulf their hometown. “The Clouds Always Pass” is the title and theme of the CHHS production that is the original work of theater teacher and director, Judith Park.](https://www.troymessenger.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2015/09/10-1-CHHS-DRAMA-pic-two.web_-300x170.jpg)
MESSENGER PHOTO/JAINE TREADWELL
Cast members Nelsey Leverette, left, and Reagan Gross are as busy as bees both a work and in trying to unravel a mystery that has engulf their hometown. “The Clouds Always Pass” is the title and theme of the CHHS production that is the original work of theater teacher and director, Judith Park.
“The audience is taken on a suspenseful journey for the sake of solving the mystery and following true love,” Park said.
“The Clouds Always Pass” will be performed at The Studio, which Park said is an ideal setting for the play.
“The Studio has a rural feel to it with its brick walls and concrete floor,” she said. “It’s a great place for the play and, too, we are building a partnership with the Johnson Center for the Arts just across the street and this is one way to do that.”
Park will direct her play, which has a 14-member cast, lighting and sound crew and a teacher assistant director. Cast members are: Meredith Gramley, Mary Thomas Jones, Hannah Jordan, Reagan Gross, Nelsey Leverette, Kacie Gibbons, Dalton Gross, Bryce Senn, Tiffany Peppers, Nicklaus Chrysson, Bricelyn Green, Cait Ryan, Seth Manning and Anthony Tolbert.
The crew is made up of Park, Elizabeth Huggins, assistant director; sound designer Zack Scott, lighting designer, Delaney Davenport, and set constructor, Brantley Park. Jerry Johnson lends his talents to the artwork for the play.
“The Clouds Always Pass” will be performed in competitions later in the fall.