Eureka students stage play about social status, self and friendship
The cast of Eureka's student production of "Be More Chill" includes front row/seated: Avery Simpson, Liberty Adams and Violet Bird. Standing: Lincoln County High School English teacher Latimer Hoke, Raven Evins, Katelynn Singer, Jacob Buckingham, Matthew Tullis, Coco Striefler, Franka Striefler and Benjamin Cooke
A group of Lincoln County High School students has taken on the sizable task of staging their own theatrical production of the popular Broadway musical “Be More Chill.”
Performances will take place April 2 at 7 p.m., and April 3 at 2 p.m. at the Lincoln County High School auditorium in Eureka.
This winter, sophomore twins Coco and Franka Striefler were lamenting to their neighbor, Rita Collins, who runs the Sunburst Arts Foundation in Eureka, that there wasn’t going to be any high school play again this year. Collins said, “Well, just because the school’s not doing one doesn’t mean you can’t do one.”
The Strieflers told her about the Broadway musical “Be More Chill,” which they had been practicing and singing with friends just for fun, and they performed some of the scenes for her. After seeing their spontaneous performance, Collins said “OK, if you can raise the money for the majority of it, Sunburst will help you.”
The student got a cast assembled, but then they hit a snag when they learned that the rights to the play alone were $1,400. They then went out and pitched sponsorships to area businesses and Corwin Motors agreed to fund the play for $1,000. Then Valley Bank offered $250 and they were back in business.
The students hit every thrift store in Eureka, Whitefish and Kalispell to put together their costumes. Then individuals started pitching in and buying costumes and props. A woman responded to a Facebook post and offered to build the set with her husband and Flathead Valley Community College agreed to let the kids use its sound system and microphones.
“Be More Chill” was originally a novel published in 2004 by American author Ned Vizzini. Sadly, the author suffered from depression and didn’t live to see its success after it was turned into a Broadway musical. Vizzini died by suicide at the age of 32.
"Be More Chill" is about an unpopular high school student named Jeremy Heere who is considered a painfully uncool high school loser by his peers. He spends his days lusting after his beautiful classmate Christine and tallying his daily humiliations. Everything changes when his cool classmate, Rich, offers the secret to his success — a squip. A squip is a swallowable pill-sized computer that, once ingested, tells its host how to behave in order to be more chill and therefore more popular. With the squip in his corner, Jeremy gets constant advice on how to be cool, and finds his life and social circle changing dramatically.
“Be More Chill” is about the important journeys young people take to reconcile the varied voices promising guidance in order to find their own — from the struggle to navigate high school social status, to defining who you are on your own terms — and the power of true friendship.
The students are doing 100% of the directing, producing, acting, set designing, fundraising, and doing the posters and marketing.
As one parent stated in an email to the Inter Lake, “While theater programs spring up and thrive all over the Flathead Valley, kids in Eureka experience a pretty big gap in terms of resources or support for the arts. So in this small rural town with no formal theater program, a group of passionate high schoolers decided to take matters into their own hands and are creating their own production … These kids are climbing a big mountain.”