Picture “Shark Tank” with fairytale characters, and you’ve got the basic idea for Marathon High School’s newest show.
Oh, and one other small detail: If nobody buys in, you get fed to a dragon.
On stage this weekend only with a 6 p.m. curtain on Saturday, Nov. 9 and a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday, Nov. 10, playwright Katie B. Oberlander’s “Dragon’s Lair” features a revolving door of characters ready to make their pitches to “The Dragons”: Rumpelstiltskin (Cameron VanHoose), the Fairy Godmother (Zyan Wiggins), the Evil Queen (Rylee Seligson) and Robin Hood (Dakota Mertyris).
Will “Ogre Botox” make the cut, or will it be beaten out by “Power Porridge,” “The Goodie Basket” or “Giant-Be-Gone Spray”? A tantalizing idea means an investment with the Dragons’ own gold – but a lame-duck pitch means a trip down to see the fire-breathing Azriel the Tormentor.
“It’s high-risk, high-reward,” laughed VanHoose.
A quick glance through the “Dragon’s Lair” playbill shows a top-heavy roster with 12 seniors in crucial cast and crew positions. But despite putting on shows with their third director in as many years, the Class of 2025 members who sat down with the Weekly said their focus this fall was on providing stability, teaching moments and encouragement for the younger members of the school’s drama club, many of whom will step on stage with speaking roles as middle schoolers.
“We’re definitely trying to make the family bigger,” said Mertyris. “We want to leave it so that it’s fun for the new kids and they can get new kids to come in.”
The cast praised the dedication of Rhonda Crutcher, a Coral Shores English teacher who stepped in from Marathon’s Upper Keys neighbor when the club needed a director to complement producer and club sponsor Carolyn McKechnie.
“There’s going to be a learning curve with everything, but we’re all so appreciative that she stepped up and made such a big sacrifice to drive down here every day,” Seligson said.
The school’s fall productions tend to feature shorter shows, and “Dragon’s Lair” is no exception, with a run time of a little over an hour. But according to the seniors, it’s a prime opportunity for training in critical crew positions as younger members of the club learn the process of producing a show before a full-length musical hits the stage in the spring. Or, as Seligson put it, “Everyone’s training someone.”
“Right now we have two seniors who know everything (tech-related) with Noah Howell and Caris Jimenez,” said student director Samantha Schofield. “They’re working really hard to train some middle schoolers so we have someone for years to pass on that knowledge.”
“We’ll have kids who know what they’re doing, and then by musical season, we can do something huge and really leave a mark as seniors,” said Mertyris. “That’s our biggest thing right now.”
Tickets for “Dragon’s Lair” are $5 for kids and $10 for adults, available at the door.
Photos by CATHY WALTERS/Contributed
