Members of the Warrior Theater program worked hard to put on their production of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime” earlier this semester. 

The show is about a boy on the autism spectrum named Christopher who struggles through family challenges while doing detective work on the recent murder of his neighbor’s dog. 

Theater Director Jeremy Stoll explained a few reasons why he chose the play for this fall.

“It’s a show I’ve loved for a long time,” Stoll said. “I think it’s both a good story for our community and audience members, and a good challenge for our actors.”

Despite loving the show, Stoll acknowledged that there are some controversies surrounding the play and its depiction of autism. 

“I’m aware of the controversy over Mark Haddon’s depiction of autism, only indirectly acknowledging his main character’s Asperger’s Syndrome,” Stoll said. “He’d been criticized for not doing research, or enough research, in his writing of the novel. However, many individuals with autism or asperger’s have come forward to describe the way in which they appreciate the play’s depiction and felt seen or understood by the characterisation of Christopher.”

Stoll expressed that there were several challenges that came with directing such a technical play.

“Building trust with the cast in a style and genre of play that they had never done before was a big initial hurdle,” Stoll said. “We did workouts, team-building exercises, and physicality rehearsals to overcome that and, gradually, I think they started to understand what I was talking about.”

Stoll added that the messaging and presentation of the show was another hurdle, so he had to come up with a way to combat the challenge. 

“We invited several different people to speak and be heard including cast members, a visiting guest artist with Asperger’s that could speak directly to it, and messaging with parents and audience members,” Stoll said.

The journey for Stoll was challenging yet rewarding because he believed it allowed people to experience what theater can do for your emotions and perspectives.

“Rarely do you participate in something at the high school level that will disrupt your routines and enrich, or at least nudge, your perspectives and beliefs,” Stoll said. “I believe the theater does that, and I hope it did it for the people that came to see ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.’”

Lead actor Emma Gordon played Christopher in the show. She said that she experienced some difficulties as well during the production.

“The most difficult part of playing Christopher was properly portraying his experience with autism while also being true to his situation and his character,” Gordon said.

In order to ensure the proper portrayal of the character, Gordon worked with both Stoll and an autistic man who’s heavily involved in the Omaha performing arts. 

Gordon explained that from that experience, she now has a different perspective on people who have autism.

“My biggest take away from this experience was how difficult everyday things can be for someone with autism,” Gordon said.

Gordon wishes that the audience watching learned from the experience just as much as she did.

“I wish the audience really appreciated the work that went into this story,” Gordon said. “It’s such an important play because it really teaches the audience something that they probably don’t understand.”

The actors and the director weren’t the only people who experienced challenges when working on the production. 

Head stage manager Thomas Padios was impressed by the tech crew’s ability to execute such a technical show on short notice.

“We incorporated our tech crew pretty late into the production process, so I think catching everyone up to speed was a little difficult,” Padios said. “Usually we have a whole week before show week, but for this show they got two days and then we were straight into show week.”

Padios was grateful for the assistance he had through the tough process because he learned that managing a show can be very stressful.

“This was my first time stage managing a full length show, with a cast of 18 and a crew of about the same size,” Padios said. “I had two lovely assistant stage managers, Abby Mutum and Emma Gross. They were such a huge help because this show was stressful at times.”

Both the cast and the crew learned valuable lessons through “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime”. With challenges also came rewards due to the hard work that was put in by everyone. 

Westside Theater will be producing another show at the end of the semester showcasing their actors’ talents. See “Puffs” Thursday, Nov. 30 – Saturday, Dec. 2 at Westside High School.