Student’s New Who Done It Play Makes Debut At St. John’s Prep [PHOTOS]

COLLEGEVILLE (WJON News) -- A project two years in the making is coming to life at St. John’s Prep. The school’s theater department is performing the play “Proven Guilty” over the next two weekends which was written by Senior Annika Dauer. Dauer says the idea started with a conversation between crew members on another show about what they would want in a murder mystery.

From there she worked on it in a creative writing class, and then it just took off. She says she has always been a fan of crime dramas and mysteries:

"My favorite movie is the 1985 Clue, and Knives Out, Glass Onion, I love BBC's Sherlock and Columbo so it's very much a love letter to the time I spend with my family just sitting on the couch watching these kinds of shows and my own love of it."

Dauer says in the spirit of Clue, “Proven Guilty” does have a Twisty ending. Theater Instructor Brandon Anderson says the play is really clever:

"It's a murder mystery where the suspects all assume that they are guilty so we go through this process of finding out who actually is guilty and I approached Annika saying you know you put in the work, you've taken two years to do this and it's now I think ready to become a full production."

Anderson says one of his goals is to produce original pieces at St. John’s Prep and Dauer’s “Proven Guilty” will be the third piece done by a student they have put on. Dauer says she is pretty nervous to see it be performed:

"It's definitely a new experience to have people I know in the room to see something that I created on a big official stage like this which is very nerve-racking, I'm not gonna lie."

Dauer says she has hi hopes for the play based on the cast's reaction to certain parts during rehearsals.  Anderson says you can never go wrong with doing an original play and supporting students:

"It doesn't have to be perfect, you know, this idea that we have to produce something that's Broadway-ready it's like no part of this process is allowing a student to put the work out into this capacity to then revise it and go oh this worked, this didn't work and hopefully give them the leg up on how to do something more with it in the future."

Anderson says in theater you either do or don’t do it and they are definitely doing it with Dauer’s play.

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“Proven Guilty” is showing on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and on Sunday at 2:00 p.m. and then on November 1^st and 2^nd at 7:30 p.m. and on November 3^rd at 2:00 p.m.  Tickets are $15.00.

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