Performances of “The Boys Next Door” will begin on the third week of October. For two weeks, there will be 5:30 p.m. showings on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday in the Theater room. Each show has 53 available tickets.
Emmett Bales chose this year’s play alone, unlike years past where he asked for input from the graduating group of seniors. “The Boys Next Door” is about four men with different mental disabilities who live in a group home. Bales chose this play because he wants to “show the commonality of all of us instead of our differences.”
This year, he has prepared the show for a variety of publication venues. “Depending on what happens, we have to be prepared to make this into a radio show, in case we can’t have an audience at all,” said Bales. They are going to start building some of the sets in the theater room in hopes that they can perform there.
Many of the students in Bales’ freshman theatre class said that even though they’ve only had three rehearsals, things were going well. Bales agrees with the students and says that, “Everybody’s really zoning in together and seeing the purpose for the play and everything. They’re doing really well.”