NIOBRARA COUNTY – Junior class play November 21 and 22 - The budding thespians of Niobrara County High School are getting ready to break a collective leg.

Under the direction of Cassandra Matney, the junior class has begun full dress re- hearsals of “How to Get Away with a Mur- der Mystery” by Don Zolidis. The production started at the beginning of October and is now entering the final phase before the stage lights go up.

According to Matney, her troupe is more than ready to serve audiences an evening of meals and mysteries.

“The kids have been phenomenal,” Mat- ney said. “They have worked so hard on this. They were super excited. They’ve been excited all of the way through. We’ve done everything from morning practices to midday practices to evening practices and they have rocked them all.”

The junior class play is an annual af- fair, generating vital revenue for prom and graduation.

“It’s a huge tradition in Lusk to have the junior class play,” Matney said. “The money has to last them two-years. Our community is so great about supporting our kids. So, it’s a great way to give back to the community.”

Matney let the students select the play for this year’s production. Of course, the students chose “How to Get Away with a Murder Mystery,” which hysterically lampoons all of the familiar tropes of the murder mystery genre. Among those tropes is a hermetically sealed alibi, a verbose soliloquy delivered by a detective with an exaggerated accent, and a ridiculously elaborate murder weapon. According to Matney, the play appealed to the students because of its radically dynamic array of scenes and scenarios.

“I think it’s just the fact that it changes,” Matney said. “Each scene is a different sce- nario. It’s kind of set up like Clue. Each scene is a different scenario as far as who the mur- derer is or what happens. So, it’s different. It’s not the same throughout.”

While the story is pretty much laid out in Zolidis’ script, the junior class has been able to place their own creative stamp on the production.

“They’ve put their own spin on some things,” Matney said. “They have been great because they will be like ‘Hey, let’s imple- ment’ or ‘This would be really cool if we could do it this way.’ They have been really into how it comes together.”

The first performance of “How to Get Away with a Murder Mystery” will be held for LEMS classes on November 20. Performanc- es for general audiences will be held on November 21 and 22 at 7 p.m. Each performance will be preceded by an optional dinner at 5:30 p.m. Tickets for the show sans dinner are $5. With dinner, tickets are $13.