The show is set to open Friday, November 19, and will continue until Sunday, November 21.

Katie and Megan are directing the production, which follows the story of two grocer’s assistants who, when their employer goes to town to visit his mistress, go “on the razzle” for a night of fun in Vienna.

According to a release from the school, the comedy was first produced in Edinburgh in 1981. On The Razzle is adapted from the same German farce that provided the plot for the musical Hello, Dolly!, winner of four Tony Awards and one Academy Award. On The Razzle playwright Tom Stoppard also wrote the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and the screenplay for Shakespeare In Love.

Katie has been performing and working on the fall dramas at the school since she was a freshman, and said on Friday, working with her best friend, Megan, has been fun. Megan said she started performing in theater productions in middle school, and was obsessed with Broadway soundtracks when she was younger.

“We were so excited when we found out we were going to be directing,” said Katie.

Megan said the two have been friends for so long, they found themselves coming to the same ideas for the play’s creation.

“We’ve been in a lot of the same shows and worked with a lot of the same directors,” Megan said.

With the stage not fully complete, and some details to be worked out, Megan said the actors and the production crew were at an appropriate level of preparedness for the first full run-through on Friday.

So far being a director is more work than Katie expected, but she said it is fun and is a different experience than she is used to.

As the deadline approaches, “I’m thinking, I hope everything comes together in time,” Katie said, “but I am also really excited. It’s just that a lot of things need to come together to make it all fit, but I know it’s going to.”

Katie said she came across On The Razzle one day and found it to be hilarious.

“It’s one of those shows where each joke has you laughing about it two lines later,” said Katie. “You get more and more jokes as you go along. It’s so funny.”

The production will be on a flipped stage, so audience members will be sitting on the school’s stage to watch the play.

Megan said the show will be worth seeing just to see how the play has come together technically.

“And because it’s a British farce,” said Megan, “it’s funny. And, not only that, it makes you think.”

The intimate cast of 11 comprised seniors George Primavera, Matt Hoeffel, Matt Madden, Leah Barrett, and Kyra Smith; juniors Luke Shearin, Ben Stoller, Ishaar Gupta, and Alessandra Delia; sophomore Melanie Curtis; and freshman Kirsten Liniger. The production is being overseen by NHS teacher Abigail Marks.

The two-story, rotating set was designed and built by NHS students under the supervision of NHS teacher Tom Swetts and student technical director Sarah Desrosiers. 

 Performances in the Newtown High School auditorium begin Friday, November 19, at 7:30 pm, and continue Saturday at 7:30 pm, and Sunday at 2:30 pm. Tickets are $10 and will be available at the door.