By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
I’ve been on this adventure before with Tillus the Paladin. Scaling the Mountain of Steepness, battling the shape shifting green jellyfish and a five headed dragon.
Those versions of “She Kills Monsters” was the original edition, done at BGSU and Owens. Now, Horizon Youth Theatre is staging “”She Kills Dragons: the Young Adventurers Edition.”
Most youth editions of shows are mostly abbreviations in terms of plot. In this case, the playwright Qui Nguyen has reimagined the story for a teen cast, so everyone on stage is playing a character close to their age.
Agnes (Violet Grossman) now is a senior in high school, and a cheerleader, not a young teacher. And the frame story, about her parents a little sister all being killed in a car accident, now just has Tilly (Fox Roberts-Zibbel) being dispatched when hit by a car.
“She Kills Monsters” now is more focused on the happenings within the imaginary landscape of the Dungeons & Dragons adventure.
”She Kills Dragons: the Young Adventurers Edition,” directed by Mikayla Trimpey, is on stage tonight (Nov. 8) and Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. in the Grand Rapids Town Hall, 24287 Front St. Tickets are $8 for students and seniors and $10 for adults, available at horizonyouththeatre.org or at the door. Seating is general admission.
With the 15-year-old Tilly’s death, Agnes is confronted with the realization that as they grew up they grew apart. Agnes is described as just your average girl who is into pop music, TV shows, and boys, particularly Miles (Aidan Thomas), a football star — at least in his own eyes.
She wishes her little sister wasn’t a nerd, off into her own world of fantasy. Agnes discovers a Dungeons & Dragons adventure her sister had created, but she doesn’t know what to make of it.
So she takes it to a game store where she encounters Chuck (Jonah Truman). Chuck is a goofy guy, a freshman, socially awkward and unsure about how to approach girls. Yes, Nguyen does play with the gamer stereotypes, but then fleshes out their humanity. It turns out Tilly knew Chuck. So Agnes recruits him as dungeon master to lead her on this adventure, and bring its inhabitants to life. Somewhat reluctantly he does.
Once Agnes enters the world of the game, she meets her sister in her D&D character, Tillius the Paladin. We then meet our fellow adventurers Lilith ( Eve Barman), a sexy demon queen, and Kaliope (Juliet Erekson), a powerful dark elf.
Their first task is to track down Orcus (Xander Sands at the dress rehearsal on Thursday and in the Friday show, and Em McLeod on Saturday and Sunday). Orcus for some reason had Tillius’ soul. Turns out he traded it for a new TV so he can watch his favorite shows — the play is set in 1995, so there are plenty of pop culture references thrown in.
He is a slacker and has to be forced to join the adventure to seek the soul from a five-headed dragon.
Agnes is dismissive of the game at first, confused, and constantly asking questions, but she grows into her role as she comes to understand Tilly better.
All these characters are based on real life people in Tilly’s life. And the trials the adventurers face are Tilly’s projections of what she faces in school.
She is struggling with her identity as gay, and that brings on bullying from some of her peers.
These freshmen cheerleaders appear in the game as the Succubi, Evil Gabbi (Sophia Ostrowski) and Evil Tina (Huxley Beard) as brave as Tillius the Paladin is he shrinks when confronted by them.
It takes Agnes to figure out how to defeat them.
The action toggles between the game and the real life where Agnes starts making the connections with her sister’s life.
That includes the hapless Steve, who constantly shows up unbidden in the game, only to get smoked by whatever creature the adventurers are facing.
Her friend Vera (Avery Hensley) offers blunt advice, including dumping Miles. (The character is in place of a cynical guidance counselor who gets most of the laughs in the original version.)
As the game comes to an end, Agnes realizes she will now lose Tilly again, though she now understands how much she is missing.
While shorter — 90 minutes with no intermission — the youth edition has a big heart. The cast projects a certain energy that comes from dealing on stage with issues they face off daily.
