Theater presents “Anatomy of Gray” tonight at 7 p.m. in the auditorium. Tickets are on sale now; they’re $5 for students and $10 for adults. The show will go on Thursday, Sept. 15 through Sunday, Sept. 18. Thursday through Saturday the show starts at 7 p.m., and on Sunday the show begins at 2 p.m.

The play is about a fictional town, Gray, Indiana, that experiences a small plague during the 1800’s. As the people of Gray, Indiana try to locate where the illness originated, they learn some meaningful life lessons about the community and caring for others.

“I picked ‘Anatomy of Gray’ because it’s a really good show that includes a lot of students,” theater director Kaiden Maines said. “So everybody got an opportunity to be a part of the show, whether that be the cast or crew. And plus, I just love the story. The ‘Anatomy of Gray’ was the first play I ever had a lead in when I was in high school, so I know the play very well. I wanted it to be the first show I got to direct here and get to experience with my new students.”

The audition process took around three days for callbacks, auditions for roles and setting the cast. 

“I think there were so many talented girls in this process and any of them could have been this part,” senior Emily Milligan said. “I just put my best foot forward and auditioned with what I had and what I thought I could do to my abilities, and I just saw what Ms. Maines wanted to do.” 

Milligan received the part of Tiny Wingfield, whose personality is a bit on the wild side, making her work extra hard to keep up with her character’s spunk.

“She is a very feisty and kind of crazy character, so I have to constantly keep my energy up to play her,” Milligan said. “And she’s definitely out there so I have to make sure I keep her energy up 100% of the time.”

The show was officially cast on Aug. 17, and since then, the cast has rehearsed every day for the upcoming show. Daily rehearsals were from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the auditorium after school. The cast occasionally met on weekends as well. 

“I think the most challenging part with casting any show is putting students in the roles,” Maines said. “It’s more of a good problem to have so many talented students you could place anywhere and they’d succeed.”

As the auditions ended and the cast was set, senior Abigail Ehrenberg was chosen to play Rebecca, the mom of June, after her hard work to earn the spot. 

“There’s a scene that my character has early on in the show,” Ehrenberg said. “She tries to get rid of her baby and then someone convinces her to keep it and because he convinced her to keep it, she’s like, ‘Oh, it’s your baby now.’ She has a little girl boss moment where she’s like, ‘No, you wanted this kid, you got it.’ That’s my favorite.”