COLUMBIA — Columbia High School’s theatre students are about to take their audience across the universe. CHS High School Theatre, home of International Thespian Troupe 289, will stage A Wrinkle in Time as its fall production next weekend in the Columbia High School Auditorium.
There are three performances: Friday, Nov. 20, at 7 p.m., and Saturday, Nov. 21, at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
A classic that has traveled a long way
The play is based on Madeleine L’Engle’s novel, first published in 1962 and awarded the Newbery Medal the following year. The book has sold more than 10 million copies and has been turned into films, an opera, a graphic novel and several stage plays.
The story follows Meg Murry, a stubborn and awkward teenager whose scientist father has vanished. With her gifted little brother, Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin O’Keefe, Meg is swept up by three strange visitors — Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which — and carried through a “tesseract,” a wrinkle in space and time, to rescue her father from a darkness that is spreading across the universe. In the end, Meg finds the one thing she has that the darkness does not.
Built for a big student cast
Columbia is performing the full-length stage version adapted by Morgan Gould and licensed through Stage Partners. That version runs about 90 to 100 minutes and was written with ensembles in mind: it can be staged with as few as seven actors or with 30 or more, which lets a school put a large number of students on stage while keeping Meg’s journey at the center.
It is a show that asks a lot of a cast and crew. There are no spaceships in A Wrinkle in Time; other planets, a giant disembodied brain and travel between worlds all have to be created with actors, light, sound and imagination.
If you go
- What: A Wrinkle in Time, presented by CHS High School Theatre
- When: Friday, Nov. 20, at 7 p.m.; Saturday, Nov. 21, at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
- Where: Columbia High School Auditorium, 901 Ironville Pike, Columbia
- Tickets: $8 for adults; $4 for students and senior citizens; children under 5 are free. The school says tickets are sold through the Athletic Event Tickets page on the Columbia High School website.
The Chronicle will have more on the cast and crew ahead of opening night. If your student is in the show, on the crew or helping behind the scenes, we would love to hear from you: email editor@thecolumbiachronicle.com or text 717-366-0037.
A Wrinkle in Time (Gould full length) is produced by special arrangement with Stage Partners.