Jasper Winterton
Feature Editor
Photo provided by Zayne Smith
“Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time,” the spring play, starring senior Zayne Smith, will be showing in the Black Box Theater on April 20-22.
The play is based on the original novel by Mark Haddon. The plot follows Christopher Boone, a boy on the autism spectrum, played by Smith. Boone follows a mystery involving a dog after finding it murdered on the street he lives on, which for the rest of the show he spends investigating the death.
The role of Christopher Boone is one of the hardest in the play, as it requires Smith to stay on stage for the whole show.
Smith has been a member of the theater department since his junior year and has been individually prepping for the show extensively, with at least an hour of research and practice alone every day.
“I usually spend at least an hour a day outside of rehearsals practicing, memorizing, working on my own,” Smith said. One of the most challenging parts of the process has been the pressure he’s been feeling, as he worked on memorizing his lines, his actions, and getting into character for months.
“The memorization is a really big challenge, there’s not a single scene where I’m not on stage.” Smith said.
While this is the last play Smith will be a part of in high school, he plans to pursue theater and is enrolled in the Webster Groves University theater department.
“I really wish that I got involved faster because there’s something different about high school plays that’s just kind of different from professional kind of stuff, and the community is so great and supportive,” Smith explained. While he is feeling a lot of pressure with the production, he said that it will be a great way to end the year and his time in the high school theater.
Tickets are $10, and the show will open at 7 p.m.
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