Lynn Singh

After the winter play, “The Curious Savage,” the North Theater Department received a lot of feedback. Due to the plot of the play taking more than five minutes to understand, a lot of students failed to grasp the story told by the show.

“I just wish there was someone to explain the whole thing to me, or at least something to make it make more sense,” said freshman Cara Less, “Or like if they could put some Subway Surfers footage next to the play I could probably pay attention better.”

Another student, Al Lover, explained how they could not get through the show without ChatGPT.

“What, am I expected to like pay attention or something? How can I do that without my personal friend, ChatGPT. When I was asking him questions about the show, it’s like he gets to enjoy it too!” said Lover.

Taking this feedback to heart, the theater department went back to the drawing board to pick a play with extra context and comprehension support for North. After considering hundreds of plays, they settled on writing an adaptation of a famous book themselves: “Potty Time with Elmo.”

This decision was not made lightly. Adaptor and director, Dee Rector, spent hours creating an adaption appropriate for our school. The adaption was made to accommodate for falling attention spans in a few ways. Instead of having a two act play with a 15 minute intermission, the play will have 32 two minute acts with a 10 minute brain break available between each one.

During the brain breaks, there will be student interpreters available to explain everything that happened in the previous act. Junior Compry Hanson, the only student with an A in standard English 11, is serving as one interpreter.

“When they hired me for the role as interpreter I thought I’d be able to practice my ASL. Instead I have to research 16 ways to explain what a potty is,” said Hanson.

The play will also unfortunately only have five actors in order to accommodate for past confusion. The lead roles are Elmo and Potty. Elmo has a total of six lines throughout the play, and Potty has a seven minute interpretive dance split across four of the acts.

“I’m really hoping to get the role of Potty,” said senior Pepe Doody. “I feel like I was born for this role.”

In order to prepare for this show, the theater department is taking a longer period of time than usual. Auditions will take place next week, despite the play premiering on Dec. 17. Rector explained she wants to cast the actors early to ensure complete proficiency in each role, and for no other reason.

“I am going on vacation from Apr. 11 until Dec. 16,” said Rector.

The theater department will be selling Elmo plushes alongside comprehension guides at concessions for a cheap price of 17,000,000 cents. The department encourages viewers of the play to purchase them for further clarity about the show. Come out to support your theater department in their very own adaptation of “Potty Time with Elmo” this winter!