By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Back stage at Bowling Green Performing Arts Center, director Hailey Kozey is laying down the law to the cast before the tech rehearsal.
No cell phones, and no talking. That’s distracting to the audience and crew.
The cast nods acknowledgement.
Kozey is a high school freshman, and the actors are parents of Drama Club members.
They are “flipping the script” in this production of “With Friends Like These … (Who Needs Enemies?)” The one-act comedy about a small town beset by evil-doers kept at bay by a single overworked super hero will be staged tonight (Friday, Jan. 25) at 7 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center. Tickets for the drama club fundraiser are $10 and $5 for students, which includes refreshments after the performance. Click to get tickets online.
The idea for the production was hatched by parents during a trip last spring to the State Thespian Conference.
Tom Pendleton, who plays Captain Ten Eels and his alter ego Calvin, said the parents had left the conference to take a dinner break at a Chinese restaurant. They got to talking.
Erin Hachtel, who plays the villain Lady Foxglove and her alter ego the florist Olivia, said that the parents spend a lot of time “running kids to rehearsal.”
Then an idea popped up, she said. “How funny would it be if we traded places with them, and we were the ones on stage? That would be hilarious.”
And “let the kids direct,” Pendleton said recalling the dinner.
Back at the conference, he said, they broached the idea to theater teacher Jo Beth Gonzalez.
She latched onto it. As soon as she returned to Bowling Green, she reserved the PAC for the performance.
“So we were committed,” Pendleton said.
Gonzalez said she’s reached out to other theater teachers about the project. None had done anything similar. One even told her: “You’re taking a big risk.”
Flipping the script seemed appropriate, Kozey said. “The parents support us so much we want to let them have a chance to act.”
“With Friends Like These” was originally written for the Horizon Youth Theatre by Sophi Hachtel, Erin Hachtel’s daughter, Anne Weaver, and Narnia Rieske.
“At first ,” Kozey said. “We were pretty scared. They are better than us. They have more experience than us. … They encouraged us and said: ‘This is your chance to grow.’ So we’ve taken on our roles more.”
After the tech run through Thursday night, Kozey had plenty of notes on how the actors could improve their performances.
Sophi Hachtel, part of the crew, said both her parents, Erin and Mike Hachtel, are one stage, and both have acted before.
It was fun, she said, running lines with them to prepare for the show. “It’s a cool experience.”
Erin Hachtel is one of four actors in the production who earned thespian status while in high school, a distinction duly noted in the program. Pendleton, Debi Clifford, and Shawn Douglass are the others.
Hachtel last acted in the 2011 production of “Jane Eyre” by Horizon Youth Theatre and the Black Swamp Players.
For her, learning the lines was the most challenging aspect of being back on stage. “I just decided to forget a bunch of other stuff,” she quipped.
“We all have a new found respect for our student actors — how much they do to learn all their lines and all the amazing tech stuff they do on top being full-time students and all the other things they do,” she said. “It’s been really fun to watch them develop their leadership and find ways of giving us direction and using different styles to get the best out of us.”
Parents involved also include Erin Kozey, Candi Hubert, Janet Griffith, Debbie Long, and Andrea Depinet
Asked what he learned from his role, Pendleton said: “It’s still a lot of fun to be on stage.”
His theater experience dates back to working with retired drama teacher Karen Landrus in high school.
The experience confirms his belief in how important having a strong base in drama is for young people.
After high school, Pendleton did celebration arts at his church in California and then toured for a few years with the kids music act The Mr. J Band. That was 10 years ago.
Since then he’s been busy with his two acting sons, Tucker and Hudson. Now with the younger Hudson set to graduate from high school, he may consider a return to the stage.
The cast ran through the play a second time Thursday. With the performance looming — and rehearsal time lost because of inclement weather — the crew suggested going through it again on Friday before the performance.
Gonzalez, who has a small role in the play and serves a s a second pair of eyes for the director, expressed concern about whether the cast could make it.
“We’re theater parents,” called out Long. “We have flexible jobs.”
