Gallery • 10 Photos

Kayla Parker-DiScala

Fluff(left, Madeline Blomdahl) and Margaret Aimes(right, Alison Galvin) are shocked to find Morton Pitkit(Nick Welter) dead on the couch.

Trapdoor Theatre Company opened their production of The Trouble with Summer People in the Blackbox on Friday, November 8, starting the year off with a comedic mystery.

A man (Nick Welter) is found dead in the lobby of a bed and breakfast by Margaret Ames (Alison Galvin) and Fluff (Madeline Blomdahl), raising suspicion as to who could have committed the crime and what motive they possessed.

Frequent visitors and friends of the employees come together to solve the case, suspecting the few guests who arrive and plan to stay despite the steep prices and threatening weather conditions.

The show will run until November 16, with performances on November 9, 14, and 15. All performances start at 7 pm, excluding the matinee performance on the 16th which will begin at 1 in the afternoon. Tickets are sold for $7 with ASB and $10 without.

Along with their on-campus performances, Trapdoor competed in DTASC on November 2 at Calabasas High School, receiving high placement in all categories including publicity (3rd), costumes (honorable mention), musical performance (honorable mention), and a retro radio play (5th). The company ranked 6th overall out of 74 competing schools.

“We left here with about 55 students at about 6 in the morning and drove up to Calabasas and spent our day there. There were over 74 schools there from all over Southern California, as far away as Bakersfield and all the way down to Carlsbad, which was really cool,” said Cambria Beilstein, drama advisor.

Sub-categories for performances included monologues, an all female cast portion, a musical, a drama, and a radio play.

“Out of that, we had 8 out of 10 groups get to semi-finals, and 5 groups get to finals,” said Beilstein, who also had the opportunity to step in as a judge despite her first year of attendance.

6 weeks of planning, rehearsals, and other forms of preparation went into the day long event, “It was all student-produced, student-directed, student-cast, and student-auditioned,” said Beilstein regarding her students’ participation.

Overall, Trapdoor Theater Company managed to kick of the year with a great start, motivating performers to keep the streak going strong.