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HILLSBOROUGH: ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ hits stage next week

It’s first in a year of ‘classic’ productions

By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
   Hillsborough High School theater director B.J. Solomon chose the theme of classics for the year’s rainbow of student stage productions.
   In the realm of films, few movies better define classic than “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” which will be staged next Friday and Saturday, Nov. 22 and 23, at the school.
   Ken Kesey’s novel of life in a 1963 mental institution was made into a play in 1963, 12 years before it was adapted into the movie that won the Academy Award for best film. The Broadway production starred Kirk Douglas as the Randle McMurphy immortalized by Jack Nicholson’s Oscar-winning performance in the 1975 movie that is just one of three films ever to win the five major categories of best picture, best director, best actor, best actress, and adapted or original screenplay.
   While Mr. Kesey was thrilled with the play, he sued the film company because he was upset over its adaptation for the screen, said Mr. Solomon.
   In the play, “Chief” Bromden, a docile half-Native American inmate thought to be deaf and mute, is the lead character, Mr. Solomon said, not the rebellious McMurphy whom Nicholson played.
   Still, “everybody who loves the film will be satisfied because it hits the major moments in the movie,” in two compact acts, he said.
   Mr. Solomon calls the show a “dram-edy,” delving into serious issues of persecution, oppression and what it means to be “crazy,” he said,” but there is a tremendous amount of humor in the play.”
   The cast of about 20 admittedly is “guy heavy,” said Mr. Solomon, but three of the nurses’ aides to the feared ward ruler Nurse Ratched have been adapted to women’s orderlies to give a little more balance to the cast, Mr. Solomon said.
   Chief will be played by Peter Miller, who was Maurice in 2012’s “Beauty and the Beast” as well as appearing in “Christmas Carol,” “Titanic,” “Phantom of the Opera” and “Metamorphoses.
   Nurse Ratched is Lauren Wohlmacher, who Jane in “Jane Eyre” and in “Christmas Carol,” “Moon Over Buffalo” and “Amadeus.”
   Randle McMurphy is Alex Luckenbaugh. He spent the summer at the Paper Mill Playhouse as part of the summer acting conservatory. He was Cogsworth in “Beauty and the Beast” and Christmas Past in “A Christmas Carol” as well as in “Phantom of the Opera” and “Metamorphoses.”
   They are all seniors.
   ”Cuckoo’s Nest” will be performed Friday and Saturday nights at 7, and Saturday at 1 p.m. Tickets at $12 are available at www.hhstheatre.org, or by calling 908-431-6600, ext. 2099.
   On Saturday morning, high school thespians will again offer a series of theater skills clinics for younger students in second through fifth grades. For $15, the kids can learn inside tips about acting, singing, stage management, makeup, costumes and other stagecraft, Mr. Solomon said.
   Registration is online at the theater group’s website.
   ”Cuckoo’s Nest” is the first show of the students’ season. After it stages, the department has about a week off, and then dives into production of a classic Broadway musical, “Fiddler on the Roof,” for March audiences.