7 Reasons to See Hopatcong's Upcoming Play

You've read The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. If you haven't, you've seen the movie.

And if you haven't done either, Patch knows where you should be Thursday night.

The drama club will perform the first installment of C.S. Lewis' seven-part series at 7 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday. Here are seven reasons you should see it.

1. Senior Sarah Indano, head of costumes, said the play has taken the club more than 500 hours to produce—from designing elaborate costumes to rehearsing—since the summer.
2. It's great for parents and kids. "Even people who haven't read the books, they know the story of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," said senior Brooke O'Donnell (Lucy), who plays one of the Pevensie siblings alongside seniors Steven Munoz (Edmund) and Mike Sickles (Peter) and freshman Cassidy Sandry (Susan). "It's something that's so ingrained in American childhood. It's something that everyone knows. It definitely can help bring everyone back to their childhood by seeing us perform it on stage."
3. It's short and fast-paced. Sickles said the play finishes in about two hours and includes many quick scenes.
4. King Aslan's costume is awesome. Steven Taseler's costume took more than 70 hours to create itself, Indano said, due to its many intricacies.
5. Joe Ross loves it. The director and high school teacher had never read the story before Sickles presented him the script earlier this year. But after reading it twice, Ross was all kinds of jazzed up.
6. The characters share real-life bonds—which will make the play more believable, O'Donnell said. Sickles, Munoz and O'Donnell have been best friends since eighth grade, and the play has made them closer to Sandry. Watching the four perform together as fake siblings might be like watching four real siblings.
7. It costs just $5 for high school students and seniors, and $8 for everyone else. That's cheaper than a movie ticket.