Hallie Ashley of Eupora is a cast member in an upcoming play written by high school students attending the Summer Scholars camp at Mississippi State University.
The play, “Multiverse Mayhem” will be presented at 7 p.m. Friday and 1 p.m. Saturday at MSU’s McComas Hall. Admission is free; donations will be accepted.
Hallie, a rising junior at Eupora High School, is the daughter of Jason Ashley of Rainbow City, Alabama, and the late Stephanie Dorroh Ashley.
Grandparents are Elton and Diane Dorroh of Eupora, Glen and Cynthia Berry of Mathiston, John and Carol Ashley of Clinton, and Sam and Nedra Wilson of Rainbow City.
Summer Scholars Production Camp, which began June 30, is a residential performing arts camp during which campers stage and produce an original three-act musical comedy. Campers develop their talents in music, dance and drama through intensive classes during the first week.
All scholars practice choral techniques, rehearse basics in contemporary Broadway style and jazz dance, and participate in extemporaneous role-playing activities. Since production camp involves the use of many talents, students with multiple skills, especially those who play musical instruments may help accompany some of the music. Activities during the first week consist of tryouts for the parts in the production, blocking and initial rehearsals. Week two is vigorous with full rehearsals, dress rehearsals and the final productions.
Welcome to “Multiverse Mayhem,” a three-act musical comedy where the universe literally is splitting at the seams. Act I opens on a group of scientists investigating a mysterious portal seemingly opened by Friday 13th. The scientists and their children then are transported to a new universe where they discover rebellious, oppressive governments and a world where superstitions come true.
Act II begins in an alternate universe where tears in the universe are spreading. Suddenly a universe where art comes to life collides with a universe in which monsters are real. The monsters and art simultaneously create and solve each other’s problems with existential crisis, love stories and a plan to overthrow the best art.
Finally, Act III is set in the near future on an earth that has harvested the power of these interuniversal tears to form a tear-port where people can travel freely between worlds. However, a secret plot is discovered to rip apart the fabric of the multiverse universe once and for all.
A cast of 66 adolescents working with a staff of 47 adults have created a modern miracle in record time (a script with equal parts in days flat). While most of the teens in the cast live in Mississippi, some Summer Scholars are from Texas, Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, North Carolina and Georgia. The staff hails from Mississippi, Georgia, Michigan, Tennessee and Louisiana.
While the 2018 Summer Scholars program is a tuition-based program, the camps are sponsored, in part, by the College of Education and the Mississippi Arts Commission.
Joe Ray Underwood, MSU professor emeritus of counseling, educational psychology and foundations, directs the Summer Scholars program.
