ACC play draws from experiences
“Nic at Nite” should come with the warning, “will cause laughter.” The play is a compilation of five one-acts and opens tonight running through Saturday at Allen Community College.
Unexpected one-liners, a bizarre clown dream sequence, and the evil manipulations played in the game called romance, keep the audience on its toes.
Iolan Nicholas Olson, former ACC theater student, wrote the five one-acts. He said he drew from life experiences when writing the play; other times it was his imagination running wild.
The play begins with “A Successful Robbery,” which as luck would have it is not at all a success. Two robbers, Josh, played by Michael Lowder and Hez, played by Craig Hendricks, find themselves duped by a not-so-helpful bank teller.
Lowder is not afraid to throw himself around the stage and is the quintessential goofy thief. The only thing the men are able to steal are free peppermints.
The real fun comes at the end when an unexpected turn makes the situation even more outrageous.
The next act is “A Grimm Intervention,” a clever take on what it’s like being a fairy-tale heroine. Let’s just say it’s not too different from ordinary life.
Three women, Blanche, played by Kaycee Baise, Elly, played by Sarah Price, and Rory, played by Elvira Avdeyeva, hold an intervention for Scarlett, played by Alanna Hayes, who is dating Ray Wolf, better known as “the big bad wolf,” played by Nick Thomsen.
Ray Wolf is a thief and a borderline abusive boyfriend. Scarlett is in denial of her boyfriend’s true colors, but her fairytale friends know.
As they are having the intervention, Ray Wolf comes in with a duffel bag carrying what the women expect to be stolen goods. Through trickery the women get into the bag and find it is Scarlett’s grandmother’s belongings.
Joining smarts and forces the women take the big bad wolf down and the police take him away.
Following that act is “A Chat with Ralph,” taken from Olson, and his wife Paige’s experience with their house cat.
Ralph the cat is played by Archie Huskey. Anyone familiar with cats will quickly pick up on the quirks of owning a feline.
When Ralph’s owner Sarah, played by Emmaline Durand, rubs his belly at first he likes it, it feels good, but then he unexpectedly scratches at Sarah’s hand because he has had enough.
He wants to know whom Sarah is talking to on the phone and make sure it’s not another cat.
Ironically Ralph doesn’t want Sarah hanging out with other cats because “cats are dangerous.”
It’s a hard life for a cat; they eat, sleep and repeat. Cat owners at some point have wondered what their cats would say if they could talk, Ralph is the representation of that dialogue.
“Predictable” wraps up the first half of the show and as can be imagined by the title, the show is nothing close to predictable.
Two friends sit in their school cafeteria when they meet a new student who happens to be a psychic. Dave, played by Matthew Wynn, and Tyler, played by Brandon Collins, can’t get a word out before the overly confident psychic, Michael, played by Gage Dickerson, interjects with what they were going to say.
In the meantime Tyler has a larger issue. He likes a girl, Tiffany, played by Sydney Owens, and can’t muster the courage to ask her out.
Michael’s new found interest in Tiffany gives Tyler the push he needed to ask her to homecoming. Not before witnessing Dave’s clown dream sequence.
After a brief intermission the final act “So This One Time,” is performed, which Olson drew from his own experience while in Lawrence working at a tropical-themed gas station.
Paradise is the name of the gas station but they are far from it when rude customers visit and a clown robs them.
Not all is lost though. Geoff, gas station attendant played by Hendricks, bumps into a girl, Megan, played by Cameron. The two hit it off and they become a match made in nerdy heaven.
Their love connection is later interrupted when Megan’s evil roommate, Vanessa, tries to steal Geoff away. To divert her, Geoff calls in reinforcements, his roommates.
His two videogame-playing roommates jump to the opportunity to see a “hot” girl.
We have all been in the situation where we either liked someone but didn’t have the courage to say so, had a cat scratch us because it felt like it or dated the “bad boy” and needed a little help from our friends to see it. “Nic at Nite” is a fun and light-hearted performance that the audience will surely relate to.
