She Kills Monsters is on the OCSA Mainstage. 

The following synopsis was uploaded to the OCSA Twitter account: “Agnes finds her dead sister’s Dungeons and Dragons notebook & stumbles into a journey filled with fairies, ogres, & 90s pop culture. This high-octane dramatic comedy is an homage to the geek and warrior within us all.”  The production hits the stage February 8th, 9th, and 10th. Admission is five dollars for students and ten dollars for adults. The OCSA Ledger had the opportunity to speak with the cast and crew about their experiences preparing for the production.  

When asked about his method building his character, Miles, Sam Camacho states, “Learning about my character, I related to so many aspects and traits about Miles that it was super easy to dive into what kind of person he was. More often than not, a lot of the decisions Miles made were decisions I would have made myself, however silly they might be.”  

Andrew Brouillard also had this to say on character building, feeling proud that, “Chuck is so involved in Agnes (Camila Gutierrez) and Tillys’ (Vanessa Soto) story.” He was excited to learn that he had so much control over the game itself, giving Chuck a sense of importance to the D&D environment we will be seeing so much of. Still, even with all the work the cast put into building their characters, there were still challenges to face. Camila and many others I spoke with agreed, “…because the cast is so much fun and the show is so much fun, there were some moments that we would play more than we would work, but that line was so blurred it was hard to know which was which.” 

Stage combat features heavily in this production. Amanda Traverso, who plays Farrah, had much experience with this during rehearsals. Much of the time she spends on stage is to “kick some butt,” which Amanda and many others found to be fun, even if the physical work learning the moves was strenuous.” It was difficult at first, but after practicing for so long, I was able to get comfortable with the combat I had to learn.” 

David Townsend, the designer of all the monster sound effects, tried his best to “give the monsters lots of different spooky and scary sounds, by mashing together different sounds like bees and growling. After some editing and work, I eventually ended up with what you’ll be seeing in the show. After that, the challenge was putting it on the sound board so everything runs smoothly during the show.” 

Everyone I spoke to felt that family and acceptance was a major part of the show. Sabrina Schmidt, costume dresser for the show said, “After reading the script, I felt the show was trying to tell us to have a better connection with our families and those around us so we may have a better understanding of each other. That’s shown a lot, both on stage and even during the process of building what audiences will be seeing.”  

She Kills Monsters is the second Mainstage show of the 2017-2018 school year and the entire cast hopes those who see it will have as much fun watching it as they have had creating it.