Role-playing games come to life in new show

Dungeons and Dragons will come to life as Shawano Community High School plans to entertain theater audiences with “She Kills Monsters” on April 7-9.

“To be fair, the monsters are trying to kill her, too,” said director Maddie Stuewer as she explained the overall plot of the show written by Qui Nguyen in 2011.

The play is about two sisters, Agnes and Tilly, who are as different as night and day. Agnes is more popular and mainstream, while Tilly is the family geek. Tilly dies at the beginning of the play, according to Stuewer, and Agnes is left to mourn a sister she didn’t know very well because of their different personalities.

“Agnes finds her Dungeons and Dragons playbook and brings it into a comic store, saying, ‘I don’t know what this is. I want to get to know my sister better. Can you show me?’” Stuewer said. “She starts playing Dungeons and Dragons and gets sucked into that world.”

Once taken to that other realm, Agnes finds Tilly, who wrote the playbook in the first place, and gets to interact with her sister again while fighting off otherworldly creatures.

“We’ve got wraiths, which are like Grim Reapers. We’ve got Kobalds, which are kind of dragony,” Stuewer said. “We’ve got the Tiamat, which is a five-headed dragon. That’s the big monster.”

Stuewer said she picked “She Kills Monsters” after reading a bunch of other scripts and finding that they didn’t quite jump out as a play for the school to do.

“I wanted something fun, something that contrasted with what we’re dealing with in the world,” Stuewer said. “When I read the script, I said, ‘We have to do this.’”

The show also gives the chance for interesting costumes and props, according to Stuewer, with many of the monsters donning masks. The actors also got to learn about stage combat.

“I’ve been studying it for the past few months,” Stuewer said. “I picked the show in September or October, and since then, I’ve been studying and studying so I could do the fight choreography.”

Stuewer said she enjoyed learning online, working with teachers remotely to get down various fighting techniques, along with stage magic, which she emphatically said she would not reveal any secrets.

“When they’re into it, it looks pretty intense,” Stuewer said. “It’s very cool. Before we even went into the training, we learned the safety and if something were to happen but to try to avoid having something happen.”

This show also has some SCHS alumni coming back to help with the show, according to Stuewer. Marcus Whitehouse is her assistant director, while Sabrina Damaskie is handling the props, Morgan Briskie is in charge of the costumes and Bailey Harkin heads up hair and makeup.

Besides all the cool gaming themes throughout the show, “She Kills Monsters” weaves a tale on how to deal with grief, according to Stuewer, as well as acceptance for Agnes not only of the life that Tilly lived but coming to terms with Tilly’s sexuality, as well.

“I hope that, instead of just enjoying the fights and the monsters, I hope that they take away the deeper meaning that we snuck in there,” Stuewer said.

lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com

AT A GLANCE

WHAT: “She Kills Monsters”

WHEN: 7 p.m. April 7-8, 2 p.m. April 9

WHERE: Auditorium, Shawano Community High School

TICKETS: $5 adults, $3 children. May be purchased at the door or at www.shawanotheater.ludus.com.

FYI: There is mild language throughout the show, some violence, gore and monsters. A trailer for the play can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssLGraYv4a4.)