At the beginning of the school year, Seymour High School senior Paul Bontrager was given 10 shows to pick from to be the Owl Theatre Co.’s play.
As student director, he knew he wanted to do a comedy, so that narrowed down the choices.
Reading the scripts, he wound up choosing “The Family Man” by Benjamin Bernard Zavin and Carl Leo.
In the show, set in the 1950s, Bill Cahill, a former athlete but accident-prone, breaks his leg sliding into third base while playing baseball with his children. Faced with a long convalescence, his wife, Ellen, valiantly goes back to work to support the family while Bill looks after the house. They do their work grudgingly, not realizing they are both happier and more efficient in their new roles.
Ellen bringing her boss home for dinner sends Bill into a rage, and their marriage seems to be heading for the rocks.
Then it becomes more complicated when Bill, using his wife’s name, sent in one of his original cookie recipes and an essay on homemaking to a television contest and was chosen the recipient of the Homemaker Award of the Year. The winner is to receive $50,000 and additional sums for appearing on television, but the winner must be a woman.
Bill then wants his wife to pass herself off as the homemaker, but she refuses to be involved in anything so deceitful.
Ellen turns down the award, and the show’s producers are horror-struck when they realize they have bestowed their award on a man rather than a woman. Their TV program might be held up to ridicule and cancellation.
They, however, decide to save face and their program and give the award to a man, Bill.
A sudden rash of broken bones among the men in the neighborhood ensues, as Bill has shown that staying around the house each day might not be such a bad idea after all.
“This one particularly, I just thought it was really good,” Bontrager said. “It had the gender role swap, and it had a good message behind it, and additionally from a more technical side, I knew I had the actors in mind that could do the parts in the show. … I know a lot of the acting skills of a lot of the people that are acting this year from past experiences, so I was able to piece together the bigger roles before we even got to auditions.”
The show will be presented at 7:30 p.m. today, Friday and Saturday in the Earl D. Prout Auditorium at SHS. Tickets are $5 and available for purchase at the door.
Junior Jonas Hildreth plays the role of Bill, and sophomore Ava Shuler was cast as Ellen.
Hildreth said the show written in the 1950s presents an interesting perspective.
“Back then, it was super progressive. Now, it’s more just pretty neutral,” he said of gender roles.
As for the message of the show, he said, “Basically, how men aren’t inherently better and that you should do more of what you want to do, not what you should do.”
Shuler said she likes portraying Ellen.
“She’s very funny, and I get to yell at Jonas a lot, and I love doing that,” she said, smiling. “She’s very loud and energetic.”
She also likes the message of the show.
“I like showing that things don’t have to stay the way that people say they are supposed to be. You can be completely different than how they are doing it,” Shuler said.
“It gives a really good message that women don’t have to take that stereotypical gender role of only staying in a house and only doing that. They can do what makes them happy in the world. That should be their ultimate goal,” she said. “It’s all about finding your own way and finding that you don’t have to fit into society’s standards.”
Students auditioned for the show in October, and the cast began working on the show in December, so Shuler said she’s ready for the public to see how hard the students have worked.
“I love the cast,” she said. “Any show, the cast and crew is always like family, so that’s what I really like. I also like all of the new people dipping their toes in and being like, ‘Oh, this is actually really fun,’ so it’s growing our program and making it better.”
Bontrager said he has been impressed seeing the actors embrace their roles.
“For the leads, this is some of the most intense line counts that we’ve ever done. Last year, I think the lead had somewhere around 170 lines, and we were floored by that. It was like, ‘Oh my gosh!’ This year, the lead has 509 lines, and the co-lead has 490, so it’s a big show when it comes to lines,” he said.
“That was definitely one part that was just blowing me away, just super impressive of how they are able to do it. It’s a lot of memorization,” he said. “Really, all in all just overly impressed with what they are doing.”
If you go
What: Owl Theatre Co.’s production of “The Family Man”
When: 7:30 p.m. today, Friday and Saturday
Where: Earl D. Prout Auditorium at Seymour High School, 1350 W. Second St., Seymour
Cost: $5 (available at the door)
Director: Erik Stangland
Student director: Paul Bontrager
Cast: Jonas Hildreth, Ava Shuler, Kaden Greathouse, Aryona Horton, Addie Brock, Drew Knutson, Jordan Lara, Aurora Clark, Dayton Smith, Hailey Burke, Kaitlyn Brandenburg, Gabriella Parisi, Haley Anderson