Teens put comedic spin on ‘Carol’

There’s a decent amount of bad acting in “Inspecting Carol,” the play being performed this week by the advanced acting class at Hoover High School, but it’s all part of the show.

In the comedy, the character Wayne Wallacher — played by Aren Soulahian, 17 — is awarded a role in a play despite his lackluster acting skills simply because the theater company thinks he is an undercover inspector for the National Endowment for the Arts, which they need to impress to save their theater company.

“I’m so horrible as an actor, they think I’m an undercover inspector,” Aren said about his character, one of the play’s lead roles.

The fictitious theater company is only a few nights away from performing “A Christmas Carol” when Wallacher shows up looking for a part. The theater company doesn’t turn him away because they are broke and need a good evaluation from the inspector to get a $30,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, several student actors explained during rehearsal on Wednesday.

Utter chaos and humor are the result of Wallacher’s arrival in the theater company. When he realizes the cast thinks he is an inspector, he uses that information to his advantage, asking for more roles in the play and rewriting portions of the script.

The humor in the show comes from the way in which the traditional plot of “A Christmas Carol” is taken apart by the fictitious theater company that is putting on the play, as well as from a dose of physical comedy that will appeal to younger audience members, said Dave Huber, who teaches the advanced acting class.

“What this group does really well is they have a great sense of timing,” Huber said. “It’s been fun to see what they bring to it.”

Parts of the play are so funny that the cast still laughs at them in rehearsal, even though their lines are memorized, said Christina Samore, 17, who plays Zorah Bloch, founder of the fictitious theater company.

Huber said he selected the play, which was written by Daniel Sullivan, in part because he needed something that would work for a cast the size of his advanced acting class, which has about 15 students. When he realized the play would be performed around the winter holidays, he concluded that “Inspecting Carol,” with its holiday-inspired plot, was the perfect choice.

One of the challenges of putting this production together, Huber said, is that the students seem increasingly busy from year to year with commitments to classes and extracurricular clubs.

“The best kids are the busiest kids,” Huber said.

For the student actors, taking part in the advanced acting class has been a way to make new friends, pretend to live the lives of their characters and have a lot of laughs.

“It’s a great way to spend your high school life,” Aren said.

“Inspecting Carol” will be performed in the little theater (room 104) at 7 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Monday, and at 2 p.m. Sunday at Hoover High School, 651 Glenwood Road. Tickets cost $8 and can be purchased at the school theater before the show begins.