“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time”, originally a novel written by Mark Haddon, was condensed into a one-act play and ran in the Freitag and Falk theater from Oct. 19-21. The weekly rehearsals for the show started in the middle of August, directed by the Fine Arts Department Chair Janine Papin.
The one-act follows Christopher Boone (junior Josh Lefkowitz), a fifteen-year-old boy with autism who uncovers truths about himself while trying to solve the murder of his neighbor’s dog.
Papin first saw the play on the West End of London while she was on a trip with Trinity students in the summer of 2016, and was immediately taken to it.
“I was so moved by this story that I immediately wanted to direct it,” Papin said.
The one-act was performed for the Florida Theater Conference on Oct. 26 and won first place, while Josh Lefkowitz won the award for best actor. It will also be performed at the Thespian District Festival on Nov. 14.
“I’ve never done a one-act before so it’s a really condensed version of the show,” senior Olivia Miller said. “It’s only like 45 minutes, so it’s much shorter. It’s about half the time of any other show I’ve ever done and that’s weird because it means you have less time to develop a character.”
Unlike some of the previous plays that have been performed at Trinity, this play is a very realistic story which made it challenging for the actors and actresses to reimagine themselves as their characters. Junior Benji Santiago, who plays the character Mr. Shears, said the most difficult part of performing was putting himself into a real life situation even without having experience with an autistic person.
“This play kind of deals with more realistic aspects of life like mental illness, because the main character, is autistic. Josh Lefkowitz does a really good job portraying that,” Santiago said.
Sophomore Thomas Lightsey plays the role of Ed Boone, Christopher’s father. In the past productions Lightsey took part in, he mostly played characters that were over the top, so playing the role of a dad and finding different ways to express anger in this play was an immense change for him.
“Our cast is phenomenal,” Lightsey said. “We have a really good time rehearsing and there’s some dark moments this year, especially with my character. So it’s really nice when you can go through those together and know that you can smile when then you look up because you’re with your best friends.”
Papin said cutting the play into one act was a very difficult task, considering how wonderful she thought the story was and hopes to be able to direct the entire play next year.
”I hope that the audience will find understanding and connection with Christopher’s journey,” Papin said. “What makes us different can be the very thing that brings out our gifts and talents. We all can accomplish much. As Christopher asks at the end of the show, ‘Does that mean that I can do anything?’ I believe that the answer is ‘yes.’”
