Play On! cast and crew complete final rehearsal before showtime at 7 p.m. on Friday, November 7, and Saturday, November 8

“Play On!” is hitting the stage of the White Plains High School Little Theater tonight, and students completed their final rehearsal to prepare for the show yesterday afternoon. The play is a comedy which features a tumultuous theater production where the playwright wreaks havoc with constant rewrites. It will be performed at 7 p.m. on Friday, November 7, and Saturday, November 8. Tickets can be purchased for $10 at the door with cash or check.

Click here to view the photo gallery from their rehearsal!

Students in the Theatre Unlimited club have been working on the play for about seven weeks, directed by Theater and English teacher Seren Cepler. The format of a play within a play provided students with a relatable situation to work through as they got ready for their performance.

“It's funny for students to do a play, about a play,” said Ms. Cepler. “So, I think that there's comfort in some of the hiccups that everyone experiences.”

“I feel like it'll be a good show,” said Alexa Leclere, an 11th grade student at WPHS who has been acting since she was three. She plays Louise, the tech manager of the play within the play. “I feel like the show is going to go well.

“Even if people make mistakes, part of the show is that it's scripted that people make mistakes. And it's a comedy. You're going to come here and it's going to be funny, and it's going to be fun. And I hope everyone enjoys it.” 

Throughout the rehearsal process, Ms. Cepler helped students by giving them tips to memorize their lines, giving instructional videos, and actually acting out the lines herself to make sure students understood how it should be delivered. The play's unique concept also was also a new challenge for the aspiring actors.

“The big challenge in acting this is for the actors to find a difference between them acting as an actor and them acting as that actor in a character,” she said. 

Sebastian Casanova, a 10th grade WPHS student who started theater in middle school and is acting in his second play and eighth overall production, says his biggest challenge was, “remembering where I have to explicitly mess up in the script because every time I've had to do that, I was like, okay, do I do I mess up here? 
Do I mess up there?” 

Sebastian plays Billy Caraway in “Play On!”, an actor who is playing the role of Steven Sellers, a famous millionaire. 

Several of the cast members are also new to acting, so Ms. Cepler noted the growth that they have shown to get ready for the performance.

“I think that students learning what goes into putting on a play has been a really valuable experience in this run,” she said. 


Beginning in mid-September, the cast and crew rehearsed a few times a week before moving to daily rehearsals at the end of October. To start their rehearsal, Ms. Cepler led students through warmups to practice different skills. One of those warmups involved clapping at the same time by communicating only using their eyes to simulate working together in a scene. 

Students also worked on their most challenging scenes at the beginning to get extra practice before running through the entire three-act play. 

“I think that there's a lot of very funny moments,” said Alexa. “I think that everyone should come and see the show. We're always happy to see as many people come to the shows as possible because we all work so hard, and everyone in the cast and crew and tech and everyone always works so hard for it.”

“Bring your friends, bring your family. Bring your dog,” Sebastian jokingly added. “We don't care. We just want people to see this.” 

Click here to view the photo gallery from their rehearsal!