MLC thespians look for ‘lost’ teacher; learn lesson to appreciate others
Mountain Lake Christian (MLC) High School thespians from the high school drama class were on the hunt as sleuths over this past weekend in order to uncover what happened to their missing teacher – Miss Nelson – in the play, “Miss Nelson Is Missing!,” taken from the book by Harry Allard and James Marshall.
The story unfolded during a trio of weekend of production presentations in the school’s Music Room on Thursday and Friday evenings and Saturday afternoon.
The kids in Miss Nelson’s elementary classroom – Room #207 – love to misbehave. Spitballs are stuck to the ceiling. Paper planes go whizzing through the air. She can’t get them to settle down and listen during storytime. They are the worst-behaved class in the whole school – because Miss Nelson is just too nice.
One day, Miss Nelson mysteriously didn’t show up for school. The students’ substitute teacher was Miss Viola Swamp – a “hard-as-nails, detention-loving, recess-canceling, homework-overloading substitute teacher” – who forces the children to (gulp!) be quiet and do arithmetic. She also cancels story hour and assigns them a loud of homework.
After a few days with Miss Viola Swamp, the students get worried that they will never see Miss Nelson again. They come up with all kinds of crazy ideas about how Miss Nelson went missing. But none of them could really have happened. They go to a detective for help – and even sneak over to her house to see what they could spy.
Just when the class thinks they will be stuck with Miss Viola Swamp forever, Miss Nelson is at school the next day. The children missed her and from that day on the kids behaved themselves – regretting their own former wicked ways.
And . . . very interesting . . . it turns out that Miss Nelson has the same ugly dress – just like the one worn by Miss Viola Swamp.
“Miss Nelson Is Missing” is a play that teaches the lesson of appreciating others.
Directing the production is MLC’s K-12 Music Teacher Aaron Petersen.
Cast
+ Lavita (a little spitfire girl) – Danica Dick.
+ Ramona (a confident nerd with an attitude) – Summer Janzen.
+ Morris “Mouse” (a tough kid) – Josh Raabe.
+ Principal Humleker (a happy-go-lucky woman) – Regan James.
+ George Jorgenson Jr. (a confident jock) – Bryce Adrian.
+ Detective McSmogg (a not-so-bright detective) – James Hamm.
+ Kimberly (a perfect, popular girl with great hair) – Melissa Lohrenz.
+ Elvis (a slicked-back-hair greaser boy who talks like “The King”) – Seth Klassen.
+ Miss Nelson (a sweet teacher who can’t control her class) – Katelyn Fast.
+ Miss Viola Swamp (a hard-as-nails substitute teacher) – Paige Riihl.
+ Phoebe (a shy, nerdy girl who gets nauseous a lot) – Sara Quiring.
+ Classroom Students (equally as misbehaved as the other students) – Emily Schroeder, Zoey Smith, Anna Toutges and Elizabeth Linscheid.