Kyle Pennington, Staff Reporter

February 2, 2012

A surge of energy, originality, and comedy hit the stage like a comet on Jan. 27 in the tower theater of McConnell when Boom exploded on stage. It is a play about the end of the world completely run and directed by Central students.

This isn’t the first play that Patrick Polsin, the director of “Boom” has directed. At the one act festival he directed Over the River and, in the fall, he was also the assistant director of Reigen.

After Polsin got the script, he gave it to Drew Carter, the lighting designer, to read.

“He couldn’t stop laughing,” Polsin said.

He also gave the script to MacKenzie Otnes, the scenic designer, who also laughed at the script.

Polsin, felt successful about his other directing experiences, then decided to put on “Boom.”The story takes place in a small room designed to be a bomb shelter and it deals with the end of the world after a comet strikes the earth.

“How one person prepares and one person deals with it, with mixed commentary from a third party,” Polsin said.

The two characters, Jules, played by Ryan Bohannon and Jo, played by Chauncey Trask, can’t stand each other but they are the only human beings left in the world.

Barbara, who is played by Skye Stephenson, oversees the whole story happening between Jules and Jo, and occasionally interjects her own commentary.

“It questions a lot of touchy subjects,” Bohannon said.

Stephenson called the play genius and said it is classic American theater.

According to Polsin the difficulties of putting on the play change from day to day. One of the hardest points of putting on the play that the crew had was money.

“All these designs but no money,” Polsin said.

From the two theater clubs on campus and the Ellensburg Art Commission, they raised enough money to put on this play. Originally, they needed a minimum of $2,000 dollars to put on the play, but after receiving all the fund raising, they received over $3,000 in revenue.

“The technical team put their hearts, blood, everything, into the play,” Trask said.

The technology of the play was very well done and included mainly strobe lights and fog effects, but also incorporated many other things such as the stage falling apart after the comet hit which were done very well. Production effects aside, the actors work hard too.

“We had twelve-hour Saturdays,” Bohannon said. “One day off in three weeks.”

Because of the short time span, everyone working on the play worked very long hours all week long to make sure the play was ready in time. The amount of hard work each member of the team put in showed during the performance.

The costumes were very funny, with Trask wearing a miniskirt and a bright red sweater, Bohannon wearing a dress shirt and brown slacks, and Barbara wearing a black suit. During the second part of the play, the costumes changed to each person wearing ripped clothes.

“We participated in the ripping clothes for the second part,” Bohannon said.

Each of the actors said they enjoyed working with each other.

“Being with such a small cast is like a community,” Trask said.

Throughout the collaboration of many students, “Boom” proved to be a huge success, not just for the actors and director, but for everyone who worked on the play through the hundreds and hundreds of hours of hard work according to Stephenson.