It all goes wrong (on purpose) at GM’s fall play

| Nov 07, 2025 | Comments 0

By Shawn Cunningham
© 2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC

Scarecrow, played by Bodhi Koske, erupts into song and dance to the consternation of Khloe Schleimer's Dorothy and Aspen Nicholas' Toto in what's supposed to be play without rights to the MGM movie's music. <small>Photo by Shawn Cunningham</small>

Scarecrow, played by Bodhi Koske, erupts into song and dance to the consternation of Khloe Schleimer’s Dorothy and Aspen Nicholas’ Toto in what’s supposed to be play without rights to the MGM movie’s music. Photo by Shawn Cunningham

Next weekend, the Green Mountain High Drama Club will put on a version of The Wizard of Oz in which almost everything goes wrong. And that’s if everything goes according to script, because for its fall play the group will be staging When Bad Things Happen to Good Actors.

The play, by Ian McWethy and Jason Pizzarello, imagines the normal missed cues and forgotten lines being amplified by a sound board operator who misses cues and loud and proud parents who are out of control. And that’s not to mention a Tin Woodsman who keeps showing up in scenes where he’s not supposed to be.

Live theater can be fraught with the possibility of mistakes and mishaps but when they come thick, fast and absurd, the results can be hilarious and the fourth wall between the performers and the audience doesn’t stand a chance.

Directed by Daryll Kale and student Natalya Dunich, When Bad Things Happen fields a cast of 22 students playing characters from Dorothy and Toto to Munchkins and Flying Monkeys.

Performances of When Bad Things Happen to Good Actors at the auditorium of the Green Mountain Union High School, 716 Rt. 103 in Chester, will be at 7 p.m., Friday, Nov. 14 and Saturday Nov. 15, and at 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 16. Admission is by donation.

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Filed Under: Education News • In the Arts

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