Cast, crew have acclimated well to leader amid preparation for 'The Man Who Came to Dinner'

Written by Seth Gordon, Newberg Graphic

Although not unexpected, Mike McConaughey has settled in well at his position as drama teacher at Newberg High School after succeeding local institution Drea Ferguson, who basically founded the school’s theater program.

After leaving artistic director duties to longtime parent volunteer Curt Eiler for the school’s first production of the year, McConaughey is fully involved with all aspects of the high school theater troupe’s upcoming production of “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” which will hit the stage at 7 p.m. Thursday Friday and Saturday, as well as Feb. 11-13.

That has further facilitated a smooth transition as McConaughey is working in depth with everyone after focusing on the stage and technical side of things for “Bye Bye Birdie,” the troupe’s last production.

“At first, you could tell that people were kind of leery of overstepping boundaries or they weren’t sure what he wanted,” senior Ayla Roberts said. “And it was hard to understand what he wanted when he would give us notes. Now, everyone’s super comfortable with him and we’re kind of like a big family. It’s really cool.”

Roberts and fellow senior Claire Retter are sharing student director roles for the production, which will also serve as their senior project and has presented some unique challenges for just about everyone involved.

Due to a lack of male roles, Roberts said casting was particularly hard and took longer than usual, but she did note that several freshmen have impressively stepped into lead roles.

Five of the roles, including that of the titular character Sheldon Whiteside, are double cast. Senior Alex Foufous, who is sharing that role with junior Christian Jones, said the time period of the play, in the late 1930s, required the actors to dig deep into the script and process its humor, which is very-much dialogue based and filled with outdated cultural references.

“It’s a little bit of old humor, but it’s fun to try to get that to play to a modern audience,” Foufous said. “It’s difficult.”

Senior Travis Cox, who is playing the part of Banjo (a character based on Harpo Marx), added that the cast has mixed in some physicality in hopes of better translating the humor for a contemporary crowd.

“The costumes really help with getting into character as well as the direction,” Cox said. “Mr. Mac has helped us with the movement, like taking off your hat when you come into a room. We don’t really do that anymore these days.”

For the second consecutive production, McConaughey has constructed a two-story set, this time working with student tech directors Ashley Modjeski and Abby Mortenson.

It has been an adjustment for the actors to perform on the more complex sets, but they have also made it easier for them in that they don’t have to use their imagination as much as they would on a minimalist set.

“It almost makes it a little simpler because when you have a small set, you have to have four things be one thing,” Foufous said. “The audience really will be able to tell where everything is. It’s not just entering a cave and leaving a cave and entering a boat and leaving a boat.”

Mortensen said building the two-story set was much easier having already done it once. She has also been able to witness how the actors are becoming more familiar with McConaughey, just like she did during the fall production.

“I think I definitely got more used to him than other people,” Mortenson said. “But now I’ve been able to see the changes when we’re running the show, not just when we’re building things.”