This year, Wayne Hills’ fall drama is Chemical Imbalance: A Jekyll and Hyde Play. Rehearsals for the show started last week, and the performances will be on December 5-7 at 7:00 p.m.

 The play stars sophomore Dylan Misquita, as Dr. Henry Jekyll, a mad scientist who uses a potion to turn into an evil murderous counterpart named Mr.Hyde. The show marks Misquita’s Hills’ drama debut.

“I had a lot of fun doing the musical last year, and I met a lot of close friends. I wanted to gain more acting experience by doing the fall drama,” said Misquita. 

Besides Misquita, a total of 11 students star as Dr.Jekyll’s family, friends, and foes. These include senior Olivia Ramadas as a rich British socialite and junior Kendra Levendusky as Dr.Jekyll’s one-sided love interest.

Unlike the spring musical, the fall drama only has a specific amount of parts, so not everyone who auditions gets to be in the show.

“It was very difficult because most of the characters are girls and we had a lot of boys who tried out this year,” assistant stage manager Christina Silvestri said.

Director and 7th-grade English teacher Barbara Jeronis is in charge of the decision as to what play the theatre group should tackle.  

“I chose it because the story of Jekyll and Hyde would be familiar to students since it has been a novel in the curriculum and because the comedy is very accessible for a younger audience,” said Jeronis.

The show deviates from the source material to the point of parody. “The show turns Jekyll and Hyde on its head, using new characters furthers an already twisted plot of murder and psychology,” Jeronis adds.

The cast seems excited about the show and recently got to read through the entire script during what’s called a table read. 

“I think that table reads can sometimes be stressful, but I feel that there’s a great camaraderie among the cast, so I felt much better.” said sophomore Jaien Han.