The Rock Church Summer Theater play in Auburn will be held each Friday and Saturday next month starting this Friday July 1st at 7:30 PM with doors opening at 7.
Traci Sellers is the playwright and she says the play will incorporate Star Valley history as it always does with some stories she learned from her mother-in-law.
“Her father was the Marshal of Thayne,” Sellers said. “And he was involved in Thayne’s one and only shootout.”
After learning that she decided to do some studying of her own and found that her mother-in-law’s two oldest sisters were married on the same day to two brothers from Freedom, Wyoming who were working as their farm hands.
“That’s where the facts end and literary license took over,” Sellers said laughing. “And I was like ‘We could have a little fun with this’. We could have these two sisters think there was just one brother.
“Then we could have these brothers think that there was just this one sister. Their paths never cross, they just never met up with each other.”
So the story will incorporate those ideas and a shootout and is the play is entitled Trouble on the Double. She also says that she took notes on her interview with her mother-in-law and will put them in the program as interesting facts. After that came the effort in writing the show.
“It took me about four years to put this together,” Sellers said. “It was a long haul in just the writing of the script.”
She says her daughter writes poetry and helped her put together some lyrics for the songs and Ilene Humphries helped her put the music together. She says seeing this all come together is “delightful”.
“Every time we have to go to a rehearsal, I am so excited to see it in living color,” Sellers said.
She says the cast also put their stamp on the creative process by coming up with things for the characters.
Director Kristin Bringhurst is on her 12th year of running the Rock Church Play and she says this year the cast is very big and the actors have doubles.
“Because this is based on a real family,” Bringhurst said. “They had ten kids. So, this is a lot of people on stage.”
She says because of this if you know someone that’s in the show and want to go see them, double check what night they are actually performing so you can make sure you see them. She says overall the cast is “fantastic”.
Bringhurst also says the prices have changed a little bit as it used to be just a standard $5 fee to get in. The charge for adults is $10, students is $5, and children five and under are free. Because there is not internet at the building, it may be best to bring cash.
“We will not be swiping cards at the church,” Bringhurst said.
All money will be used to cover expenses, maintain the building, and will go to the historical society. She also says come early to check out the pre-show as there will be different talent each night performing.
