While it will be a different kind of format for them in this part of the calendar, the members of the Moffat County High School theater program will bring the stage alive this week.

MCHS will perform “Murder by the Book” by Craig Sodaro with shows at 7 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday and a 2 p.m. Saturday matinee. Tickets are $8 apiece.

A different style

The show focuses on a gathering of famous writers, ranging from William Shakespeare to Emily Dickinson to Mark Twain, who are suddenly forced to solve a slew of murders — their own.

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The noteworthy authors are done in one by one as they attempt to determine the identity of the killer.

Besides having dark humor and a heavy premise, the play is a change of pace for the season, which is typically devoted to a musical production.

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However, MCHS theater and choir director Juliann Mathison said she had conferred months ago with band director Lia Arnold to move the fall musical to spring due to band students having a packed autumn.

“We talked with the administrators about switching the play and the musical this year so that we can free up opportunities for students to try other things.” Mathison said.

While the show will not have live accompaniment, a new speaker system in the auditorium will bring a crisp sound to the performances, which actors honed this past weekend in their technical rehearsal.

“I’m really proud of all of the students who’ve been involved, they’ve worked really, really hard,” Mathison said. “We’ve had a lot of fun putting it together.”

Getting in character

Much of the humor in the show is helped along with a knowledge of the figures actors are depicting.

Portraying Edgar Allan Poe is junior Ronin Miller, who noted that despite his character’s oeuvre being dark and brooding, his likeness in the play is a ways off from the real thing.

You can definitely tell that he wants to be as much like Edgar Allan Poe as possible,” Miller said. “There’s parts where a little bit more of his true self shows through, and he’s a big scaredy-cat.” 

For many of the cast, the characters they play are personal inspirations.

At least that’s the case for juniors MaryAnn Booker, Keylee Bower and Taya Told, who portray Mary Shelley, Louisa May Alcott and Agatha Christie, respectively.

All three female writers are renowned for their prose decades or even centuries after their most famous books — Shelley arguably created the science fiction genre with “Frankenstein” while Alcott provided a fresh take on growing up as a girl during the American Civil War with “Little Women.”

As for Christie, “Murder by the Book” is essentially an absurdist take on her book — the bestselling mystery of all time — “And Then There Were None.”

“Being a writer myself, I kind of relate to her,” Told said.

Likewise, Keylee Bower was drawn to her role, with Alcott a more high-strung type.

“She’s very anxious,” she said. “She has to make sure everybody’s going to be safe and happy she likes everybody to say very happy, positive things. I think that would come from the author of a book that’s only about women.”

For Booker, portraying Shelley was a welcome change of pace.

“I was really nervous because Mary Shelley is way out of my comfort zone,” Booker said. “She’s very bold and she’s super flirty, and I’ve never done a character like that before. I’m really happy that I got her. Trying something way different and new, I used to be really, really bad at that and so just knowing that I’m able to do that now just shows my growth as not only an actor but a person as well, and it means so much to me.”

All in the family

Working behind the scenes of the show is stage manager Jamison Bower, Keylee’s brother.

As a freshman, he had a little less familiarity with older students at the start of the production but has gotten more in tune with them over recent weeks — a necessary function for a job that includes making sure anyone who forgets a line gets a prompt.

“It’s nice being able to communicate and not have any weird blocks by not knowing them,” he said.

Jamison added that constructing the sets was one of the tougher parts of the effort.

“The painting was a lot — it wasn’t too hard, just a lot,” he said. 

Keylee said she had suggested getting involved to her sibling but was glad he decided to join the program for a shared interest between them.

“I don’t get so much time to spend quality time with my brother, and this has been really good for our relationship,” she said.

With a few new faces in the mix this year but plenty more familiar ones, Told said that the strength of the drama program is in its core membership who get more comfortable with each other in every successive production.

“We all know each other and since we’ve been doing this for a long time, we know how to play off of each other and how to act on a stage,” she said.

As part of the stage crew and an understudy, freshman Elliott Fandel functions in multiple roles among a crew that’s worked to stay attentive.

“This has definitely been more of a challenging play because we’ve been having to start up from scratch,” Fandel said. “Everyone involved has been very dedicated and they’ve showed a lot of support for their other crew members and for the cast members involved too.”

Fandel added that regardless of title or where they are working when the curtain goes up, everyone involved in the show is part of one group.

“It is one giant, big family, and it just makes an amazing play,” Fandel said.