Winchester Student Starts New Online Community Theater

Like so many ceremonial, athletic, social, academic, and arts events, unfortunately our Winchester High School musical was cancelled this year. Scripts, costumes, sets, etc. cost money, and all of that is usually covered through ticket and concession sales, with any leftover going to help fund the next event. With the cancellation, though, those funds never got collected. To help raise money for Winchester High School's performing arts departments, I have put together a brand new experimental community theater group, Fast Forward Players, with all profits supporting the arts in our community. Our next show is a live Zoom interactive murder mystery, “The Great British Bump-Off", Thursday, May 14, at 8pm. Tickets are $8 in advance and $10 day of show: http://fastforwardplayers.org.

Since we're all social-distancing from separate locations, our shows are performed live from our homes and streamed directly into yours via Zoom. Set pieces and blocking don't make much sense in this medium and costume shops aren't open now, so we are doing our best with homemade DIY props. As a student-run and student-actor organization, we also need to work around our homework and other commitments. Once I realized how many constraints we'd have, I knew this would not be like other community theaters. So, we're breaking the mold...

As our name suggests, our Fast Forward Players troupe embraces the rapid “play in a day” format. Several theater groups have used this format to get maximum fun for the cast and audience in the minimum possible time. Rather than spend months auditioning, casting, staging, memorizing, and rehearsing, our cast gets their scripts the week of the show, and we go from the first table read to live production in just 24 hours!

For our first production last month, an abridged version of Much Ado About Nothing, I called on some of my close friends to help bring this crazy idea to life. It was a wild show, and I want to thank everyone who was willing to join our troupe for the adventure. Our second show brought most of the same students together for another Shakespeare abridgement, Twelfth Night. We’re getting better each week, but live theater is bound to have some funny moments and missteps – especially when the whole production comes together so quickly!

For this week’s show, The Great British Bump-Off, we are performing our first live interactive theater production. Audience members will take notes during our performance, then they’ll get the chance to ask our characters questions over Zoom, make an accusation, and watch to see if they were right! PG-rated sleuthing fun for the whole family that you won’t want to miss!

Of course, we’re not as polished as a usual high school or community theater production, but we are doing a show every 1-2 weeks, rather than 1-2 shows a year! The stakes are high for us to put on a show quickly, and our extra raw excitement definitely adds to the experience for our audience. Our student actors enjoy acting as multiple characters, and they know if they get a small part this week, no problem – there's another show coming soon!

These are unusual times, and Fast Forward Players is an unusual live theater group. If all goes well, we'll bring you more productions - a gender-swapped Taming of the Shrew is on our short list! Remember to support THE Winchester High School's performing arts by joining us for The Great British Bump-Off on Thursday! Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @fastfwdplayers and on https://facebook.com/FastFwdPl... On with the shows!