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You’ve watched them dance and sing in Guys and Dolls, rap their way through Bomb-itty of Errors, and now  Backlight Theatre Company performed their most emotional performance of this year in The Diviners. The Diviners, a play by Jim Leonard Jr. is set  in Zion, a small farming community in Indiana during the Great depression of the 1930’s. The Diviners is a beautiful but tragic story about a boy with disabilities, named Buddy. He has a friendship a preacher named C.C. Showers, who later upsets the town with the news that he has given up his job in the church. Buddy seems to have a gift for “divining,¨ or finding water, even though he is deathly afraid of water from a previous drowning accident.

The actors in this show had to do a lot of work to bring life to their characters. Cole Otto (11), who plays Buddy’s father, explains that the actors ¨made powerpoints with pictures and ideas of what our characters would look like. We also chose songs, which demonstrated how our characters would act in the real world.” This play called for the actors to really delve into their characters and figure out what they would be like if they were real people. ¨It was different, but also a lot of fun because we got to go really deep into our characters,¨ Otto says. This type of rehearsal is obviously different from the winter show, The Bomb-itty of Errors, which was almost all rap. Ryan Gold (10), who was in both Bomb-itty and The Diviners, explained that there is a significant difference between rehearsals for these two shows. ¨Bomb-itty rehearsal was definitely more laid back and we started every rehearsal with rapping, which was fun. But this show was a different kind of fun, it was more serious and we worked really hard. We had discussion questions like a literature class and we investigated the meaning behind the play.” This show has made them work a lot harder on what the meaning is and how to show that through their characters. The show itself does not leave a lot of detail for what each character is like. Ms Stephanie Freichels, the director of this show, made her cast create their own characters. “They really put hard work into it,” Freichels said.

This show, being a lot more serious than the other two from this year, is obviously the seniors last show at Vernon Hill High School. Tucker Rayl (12) ended his career at Vernon Hills High Schoool by playing Buddy. Buddy, a character that has some disabilities, is a challenging yet interesting character to analyze and play. ¨I never did any research because there is no specific disease that Buddy has,¨ Rayl explained, ¨But, in the script Buddy is in his own world. And I’m kind of in my own world. So, I just had to bring that out of myself even more.¨ Another senior in the show is Mia Candocia, who played Buddy’s sister Jenny Mae. Candocia has been involved in theatre all of high school, and before that as well. ¨As a senior, its a very small cast so bonding with a small cast is nice because you don’t want to make any new friends,¨ Candocia jokes. ¨I think it shows that its the peak of our high schools careers. Its very emotionally draining to do this show because most characters I’ve had to play are just funny. This character is a person and this is the first time some of my friends will see me play an actual person rather than a character. Its refreshing.¨ To add onto that, some of this years seniors will be continuing their acting careers in college, like Rayl who will be attending the University of Southern California. For Rayl, he feels that his work ethic and level of work will have to change in the following year now that he will be participating in theatre at the collegiate level. “It’s hard. Every year, I think ‘what am I going to do without these seniors?’ because I have been with them for so long, seeing them grow from their freshman or sophomore years into the actors and people they are today. It is always a little sad to say goodbye.”

The show was April 30 through May 2 at 7:30 pm in the Studio Theatre. Hope you didn’t miss the chance to see this amazing show!