Printer Friendly Version - GHS Theater Arts Performs ‘Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play’

Guilford High School students rehearse for the fall production Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play written by Anne Washburn and directed by Cara Mulqueen-Teasdale. Here, Mohamed Mortaji takes the spotlight surrounded by Will Paturzo, Mikayla Walston, Lily Paturzo, Luke Standrowicz, Friday Cabhug, Isabelle Paris, Veronica Zimmer, Grace Toth, Camdyn Ludwin, Grace Newman, Grace Beatty, and Gabe Martin. Photo by Kelley Fryer/The Courier

Most folks are familiar with the heart-pounding fear of watching their phone battery slowly die in the days following a power outage. If that’s how we feel after only a few hours or days, how would civilization handle decades without power? How would that change us? Those are the questions the Guilford High School Theater Arts group tackle in their fall play, Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play.

The play is a dark comedy written by Anne Washburn. It premiered in 2012 and follows a group of survivors after a global catastrophe knocks out all electricity. Over the course of three acts, the play explores how civilization copes with and adapts to the loss of all of the modern conveniences electricity provides us in the days and years after the catastrophe.

Director Cara Mulqueen-Teasdale said the play is, at its core, “weird,” but it’s also an exploration of how things that dominate modern pop culture now can evolve to become things of lore centuries later. In the play, the one uniting factor the initial survivors have is a love of the show The Simpsons. Characters first retell episodes to one another as a source of comfort; later performing scenes from the show becomes a source of income for the survivors, and finally in the last act, decades after the catastrophe, The Simpsons is the foundation for a new civilization.

“I don’t want to say it’s dark, but it’s a play to think about,” she said. “It’s not gory the way a Walking Dead might be, but it does make you wonder...what is left behind when everything is gone?”

The play is a musical and there are lots of cast members. Mulqueen–Teasdale said because the cast is pretty young, she said she saw this play as a way to introduce new faces and really get students thinking about the bigger message of the play.

Even though the play was written less than a decade ago, Mulqueen-Teasdale said it has been interesting to see how some of the cultural references in the play go right over the heads of current high school students. They are too young to remember or have experienced the blackouts of 1977 and 2003 and even concepts as mainstream as TV commercials are a little dated to them.

“I remember when The Simpsons were just a little snippet in between commercials and now it has grown into a cultural phenomenon, but these guys didn’t watch any of that,” she said. “Or even in Act II, the characters find that people miss commercials, but kids now DVR everything, so they have no vernacular for commercials. What has been so interesting for me is I find myself having to act out all these commercials for them.”

Students designed the sets and costumes as well as the lighting and sound for the production. Mulqueen-Teasdale said this production has been a good opportunity for students to really think about the material they are performing.

“It’s a big play, but it’s a story that is good for now,” she said. “The underbelly of it all is this really kind of creepy post-apocalyptic feel, so there is a segment in the first act where everyone who meets, there becomes this new world ritual where you have a notebook and you record who you have encountered and who you are looking for. In the middle of all of this humorous stuff, there is this real sense of loss.”

Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play runs Thursday, Nov. 8 through Saturday, Nov. 10 at 7 p.m. at the Guilford High School Performing Arts Center. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased in advance at ghsta.weebly.com.