From October 16th to October 19th The Curious Incident of The Dog in The Nighttime play took the stage at UHS. This play follows Christopher, a neurodivergent boy dealing with the death of his neighbor’s dog and the pain of his parents’ separation. The role of Christopher Boone was double casted by students Logan Smalls and David Pedraza.
It starts with Christopher finding his neighbor’s dog murdered in her backyard causing him to lash out on a police officer and get arrested. Christopher is released with a warning and becomes determined to investigate who killed the dog. Christopher’s therapist tells him to write all of this down in a story book which is found and confiscated by his father. In an effort to retrieve his storybook, he searches his dads room where he finds a box of letters written by his mother revealing that she was alive and left home meaning his father has been lying to him the whole time. Not only was his father lying to him but it’s also revealed that he is the one who killed the dog. This leads Christopher to run away from home and find his mother. The play ends with him having a decent relationship with both his parents, turning his story book into a play.
The show was based on a real story written by a real autistic person. It’s one of the few live theater shows to accurately portray neurodivergency. In order to have an accurate and non-stereotypical performance the theater program even invited over autistic professional actors to help the cast understand Christopher’s mindset. “The production was special to me because of the message of the story. There’s not a lot of plays about neurodivergency so having us do a show like that is very special,” said senior Mahlee Sutherland who played Christopher’s therapist Siobhan.
This production was full of firsts for the cast and crew. This was the first show our new theater teacher Ms. Rivera has directed at UHS. It was also many of the actors’ first times leading a show or even performing at all. “What I learned from this beautiful show was not to worry about anybody in the audience and that I need to focus on all the conversations and scenes that are happening on stage. I also learned to not feel nervous at all and to just step out of my comfort zone because I’ve never been a lead before but it was an amazing experience,” said Logan Smalls who played Christopher.
This led to the students really growing and learning during the first show of the year. It set a good start for the cast and crew to learn new skills and apply them to the later shows to come. “The process honestly in the beginning was kind of tedious, then when I started the editing I remembered exactly how much I love sound. Even though I was extremely stressed because I had over 300 cues, it was all worth it in the end,” said sophomore Dakota Reyes, the head sound designer.
