Second Student Lead Play: She Kills Monster

By: Carlos Camargo

January 26, 2024

“She Kills Monsters”, a student-directed play by Senior Clare McKeown, premiered on November 15 and ran through November 19. The play sold out two out of the four days it ran through and featured powerful themes of women empowerment, LGBTQ acceptance, and loss of life earning the rating of PG-13. 

The choosing of the play goes a long way with the success of it, with the themes emotionally impacting everybody who attended.  

“She Kills Monsters is a very intricate play that has a ton of great women empowerment and LGBTQ representation, that was what I look for when I'm looking for pieces to direct,” Senior Clare McKeown said. “Along with the entertainment factor, I love stage fighting and I love choreographing stage fighting, so that really drew me," McKeown continued. 

Behind the scenes though, the cast and crew were working around the clock in preparation for the production with lots of complications including sharing a set with the previous black box production “Is he dead?” 

“The biggest challenge was probably sharing the set because we didn't get our set until like the day of which was difficult, but we made it work,” Junior Aleah Long who played Tilly Evans in the production said. 

Along with sharing a set, the original lead role for the character Anges Evans couldn’t perform the production, with that an understudy took the opportunity to fill in as one of the lead characters in the production. 

“When I first auditioned, I got the role of an understudy and the girl who was the lead originally, said she couldn't do the play.” Said Jordan Fischer who played Agnes Evans. “The director asked if I wanted to step in and be the lead? That's kind of how it happened, I originally wasn't the lead.” Fischer continued. 

Even with all the complications, McKeown prevaprovided an exceptional experience not only for her cast, but the audience as her show sold out two out of the four days it premiered. 

“As a student led production with Clare taking the lead with everything, itwas incredibly smooth in that Clare is still a senior, but it felt as if she'd been doing this her whole life. She was incredibly professional, very respectful to the cast and crew,” Senior David Rodgriguez who played Miles said.