'The Odd Couple' opens this week at school auditorium

A La Conner High School student group is proving you can play around and learn at the same time.

The school’s extracurricular theater arts program group is presenting Neil Simon’s popular comedy “The Odd Couple” with six shows at the Bruce Performing Arts Center starting this Friday at 7 p.m.

Performers include Jack Dougliss, Eleanor Drews, Gabe Barnett, Jonathan Gonzales, Rachel Haley, Madoc Hiller, Olie Phillips, Emily Smith and Josi Straathof. They are also gaining valuable math, carpentry, team-building and public speaking skills as they prepare sets and rehearse lines.

They have been practicing under the tutelage of club sponsors Jess Clement, Taylor Pedroza and Alicia Pedroza several nights each week, including a two-hour session last Friday.

“The kids are really developing their talents,” Clement told the Weekly News. “They’re growing by leaps and bounds. And how cool is it that they’re so self-motivated to be here tonight on a Friday.”

The sponsors, who have day jobs, are as stoked about doing theater work during their off hours as are the students who devote to acting what otherwise would be free after-school hours.

“It’s important to us,” said Clement. “Theater is a calling. And it might be the thing that sets them on fire going forward. There’s so much that theater arts can do for students. For one thing, there’s no better way to learn to have empathy for others than through playing characters.”

The characters portrayed in “The Odd Couple” are well known to people of a certain age who remember the show’s run on Broadway, its movie version from the 1960s and the iconic television series starring Jack Klugman and Tony Randall in the early 1970s.

Then came a Saturday morning cartoon and a couple TV remakes, one in the 1980s and another from 2015-2017.

“We’ve tried to stay true to the spirit of it,” Clement said.

Audiences can expect to see conflict and comedy in equal measure.

The plot focuses on friends Oscar Madison, a sloppy sportswriter and Felix Unger, a fussy photographer, ending up sharing a New York City apartment after each goes through a divorce and must find a place to stay.

Today’s students find the script as compelling now as it was a half-century ago.

Phillips, a freshman, was recruited to the drama club by other cast members aware that he had acted in plays while attending Port Susan Middle School in Stanwood.

“The greatest part of it,” Phillips said, “is just doing it. The rest of the cast is pretty cool, too.”

Drews, a key performer in last spring’s school production, delivered a flawless rehearsal Friday highlighted by her energy and enthusiasm.

She and her cast mates will look to extend that energy and enthusiasm six times in performance.

Anticipation of the stage curtain drawing open is building among all participants. “I’m really excited,” Clement said.

And, judging from the vibe apparent at rehearsals, everyone associated with the production feels the same.

The show open’s Friday and runs two weekends.

Attendees will “pay what you can,” Clement said. Proceeds will benefit the drama club.