Hampton students take the reins for successful fall production of 'Death by Chocolate'

On a stage drenched in blue light, a figure sits at a desk, struggling against their binds. A bookcase slides silently aside to reveal a hand holding a gun, protruding from the darkness of a secret room. A shot rings out and the struggling figure slumps over.

Michael Petrucci, a 17-year-old senior and lighting designer for the Hampton High School Drama Club’s fall play this year, was particularly proud of his lighting team’s work on this prologue.

“It’s a little difficult to pull off because it’s a part of the show where you really want things to be dark,” Petrucci said. “We really made the prologue sequence a really cool and tense moment.”

About 50 members of the Hampton High School Drama Club took to the stage, the control booth and the workshop to present Paul Freed’s 2017 play “Death by Chocolate” on Nov. 13-15 for their student-run fall play this year.

Unlike the spring musical, the fall play is entirely run by students. Each year, the previous two student directors work with the Drama Club adviser, English teacher Hannah Dunlap, to select the next two student directors from seniors in the club who apply.

For this year’s production, they selected 17-year-old seniors Ashley Kimmell and Sara Miller, who made an early decision last December to go for an ensemble comedy.

As they searched for a modern play with jokes that wouldn’t go over their castmates’ heads, Miller said a suggestion from her father led them to “Death by Chocolate,” a farcical mystery in which mysterious deaths plague a reopening health resort.

After watching a recorded production of the play online, Miller and Kimmell knew they had found their pick.

“We thought it was so funny,” Miller said. “We figured if we were laughing at all the jokes, then all of the cast was gonna laugh at the jokes — and then obviously the audience as well.”

While Dunlap is there to support them and provide some feedback throughout the process, the student directors “call the shots.”

“It’s a very exciting opportunity for these seniors who have been involved in drama for many years to really take ownership of the production,” Dunlap said. “Ultimately, it is their show, and I’m just there to support them.”

Nathan Connelly, an 18-year-old senior, played John Stone, the new manager of the health resort who must discover who killed his predecessor and poisoned the chocolates left on his desk.

Connelly has participated in the school plays and musicals since he was in sixth grade at Hampton Middle School, and he starred as Orpheus in the drama club’s production of “Hadestown” last spring.

Though it was a challenge to balance schoolwork with memorizing all the lines, Connelly said “Death by Chocolate” is “probably (his) favorite” high school play that he’s participated in.

“It’s by far the funniest that I’ve been in, which has made it such a fun experience to be a part of,” Connelly said. “My character has the most lines that I’ve ever had to memorize, which I think was definitely a challenge for me. So that was something that I had to overcome.”

Overcome it he did.

Connelly delivered all of his lines with the sardonic air necessary for the Stone character, who frequently interrupts other characters with witty quips and purposefully obtuse remarks.

As stage manager, 17-year-old senior Alice Anderson took charge of designing the set blueprints, coordinating with the other department heads and directing the crew. She said the crew did an “exceptional job” on the details of the set, including the working doors and a moving bookcase.

“We had to spend a lot of time sanding down some parts of our plywood paneling to make the walls smooth, and it just turned out really great,” Anderson said.

While Connelly, Kimmell, Miller and Anderson said they don’t intend to pursue theater careers, they do hope to be able to continue doing theater for fun in the future.

Whether students choose to do more theater in the future or not, Dunlap said their time with school productions serves as a creative outlet for them and a way to express themselves that they don’t normally get in their regular academic lives.

“A lot of these students are really high achieving. They are taking multiple AP and college and high school classes. They’re going into a variety of different fields, but they still want that outlet to really be able to just be themselves and express themselves creatively,” Dunlap said. “I think theater is a great place to do that.”