Readers Theater provides a hands-on experience, allowing students to share their thoughts and ideas to contribute to the show. This type of performance is portrayed through facial and vocal expressions. This spring, Nixa High School brought its show, “The Dallergut Dream Department Store,” to competition. The show debuted on Feb 21 at the Aetoes. 

   Learning to act in ways students might not have been comfortable doing before in a regular theater setting takes optimism and openness. 

   “Instead of playing a character, you’re playing things like a lamp and a cuckoo clock,”  junior Ellyana Molacek said. “You have to be very abstract and you have to be very creative with what you’re doing.”

   This type of theater may be seen as atypical. Students are constantly thinking outside of the box, or in this case on top of the box, since that’s the only set used for the performance. Actors have black wooden boxes that are moveable and used to create levels for the background characters. Actors have black binders with their memorized scripts inside. These are a big part of the performance and are also used in the set.   

   “They are used in so many ways.” Nixa High School Drama and Advanced Acting teacher and director Lakyn Daniels said. “It’s like we want to make a number cool, we want to have emphasis somewhere, all right let’s move our binders that way. We wanna reveal someone well, maybe we cover everything up and then they drop it and it reveals one person’s face behind them.”

   Readers Theater has roots traced back to Ancient Greece, which is where it gets its distinctive concept. Daniels adapts the Readers Theater scripts from novels. As soon as she gets the publisher’s permission, she writes and conceptualizes the show. 

   “If I find one that works, they[authors] agree, then I just start writing,” Daniels said. “So then it’s a lot of reading the book and typing out a script based on the book. It’s given me a really great appreciation for anyone that adapts a book into anything.”

    The cast performed “The Dallergut Dream Department Store” for judges at the competition and had the opportunity to move on to state which has been accomplished previously.

   “The last three years we’ve gone to state, which has been really exciting,” Daniels said.  ”We usually take a break after districts, for a few weeks just to be like ‘don’t think about the show you just lived and breathed,’ and then we hit it again.” 

The cast often acts in unique ways to create a world within the show. This includes making odd sounds or faces to show what is happening in the scene clearly.

   “If you do it right the [audience will]  love it and it’ll be like nothing they’ve ever seen,” sophomore Arthur Loden said.

    Loden said he feels that the audience has a chance to connect to the show more than in typical theater.  

   “Confidence, not arrogance but being able to get up there and be confident in what you’re doing and not be afraid to do stuff you would normally never do,” Loden said.