Horatio Will Be Late

By Burton Bumgarner
6 m, 6 w
Eldridge Plays and Musicals

Miss Duncan, the Stratford High School drama teacher, has always wanted to direct “Hamlet,” but from the very start her production is doomed. The lead actor is a prima dona who exasperates his peers. The other actors are either jealous that they weren’t cast in different roles, or clueless. On opening night the costumes still haven’t arrived; the makeup is lost, and the actor who is to play Horatio calls from the hospital just before his emergency appendectomy. A member of the cast has a cousin who is a professional actor who recently performed in “Hamlet.” When he arrives, Miss Duncan learns, much to her horror, that the actor played the role of Hamlet, not Horatio. When cue cards are suggested, they discover their professional actor is dyslexic and can’t read them. Chaos reigns as actors upstage each other, mis-cue each other, and finally end up in a big fight. Add a nosy principal, a visitor from an arts conservatory, and the pressure of trying to fulfill the terms of a state grant, and we have the worst, and the funniest, production ever of Shakespeare’s great tragedy.