MHS Players Present – She Kills Monsters
She Kills Monsters sounds like a low-budget horror flick. But John Logan, Messalonskee Performing Arts Center director and drama coach, knows the truth; he knows the Messalonskee Players upcoming fall production is about slaying misconceptions and seeing the individual in every person.
“One of the reasons I like this play is that it explores identity,” Logan said.
For high school students in particular, that’s a theme that resonates, Logan said, a real world issue that teenagers have grappled with since the dawn of the first teenager.
Logan, in his first year as drama coach, and his Messalonskee Players open the comedic drama’s three-day run at 7 p.m. Friday at the PAC.
Performances also are slated for 7 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $10 general admission, $5 for students.
She Kills Monsters tells the story of Agnes, who explores the past of her late younger sister Tilly – killed in an automobile accident – through the Dungeon & Dragons game that Tilly used to play.
Entering into that fictional world enables Agnes to learn the reality of her sister’s struggles to find her identity, her place in the teenager universe, and thus ultimately proves to be an enlightening and healing adventure.
Logan, a University of Maine graduate with a master’s degree in Fine Arts from Florida Atlantic University, said producing the play has been a gratifying experience.
The students, he said, bought into the play’s message almost immediately and embraced the value of sharing that message with an audience.
They realized, he said, that the play is “not just about memorizing and projecting. It is about what sort of story are we trying to tell and what do these lines mean.”