By Delaney Dine

The 2025 fall play at Bellbrook High school finished a three-show run of Deadline November 20 – 22.

“It’s a comedy murder mystery where eight writers are invited to a private island and asked to write a murder mystery, but it goes wrong,” senior Korianna Place said. Place was this year’s assistant stage manager and props manager.

“Originally, [the fall play] was supposed to be a Peter Pan Gone Wrong type of play,” junior Shelby Miller said. “It’s like a mix between the one play gone wrong and Peter Pan, which is the type that we’ve done in the past. It was for the seniors, because they had done this type before, but we couldn’t secure the rights.”

“So we had to change it to Deadline,” Miller said. “And I’m honestly glad because I like Deadline. I think it’s a really good play for the group of people that are in the cast.”

According to Playscripts, “When eight mystery writers arrive at a legendary writer’s fog-shrouded island mansion in the North Atlantic, they think they’re ready for the Deadline Challenge—twenty-four restful hours to write as much of their new novel as possible. But the Deadline Challenge is anything but restful. In reality, the writers are brought together to solve a murder—the victim yet be determined, and the killer yet to strike. If a writer can design and execute a perfect murder and get away with it, they’ll win a million dollars (which is a lot of money for a writer). Who will live? Who will die? Who will survive the Deadline?” The cast includes a host, the writers invited to the island to write a mystery under a deadline, and the servants of the mansion.

“I am Delacroix, the host,” Miller said. “It was originally a male character, but they cast me, making it a female character,”

A lot of preparation goes into these productions, performing a play each fall and a musical each spring.

“We start in September for the play, and the play is end of November,” Place said. “So it’s about two months of preparation with rehearsals three times a week, ranging from an hour and a half to two and a half hours.”

“It’s a lot of hours, especially because practices usually start at five because our directors have day jobs, so it goes pretty late. A lot of days,” Miller said.