Play written for Kennewick private school to be distributed nationally (with video)

Time travel. Space. An evil clothing store manager. Championship bowling.

All had the audience laughing during a Kennewick private school’s short comedy production this past winter.

“They just died,” Kelly Bruce, an eighth-grader at Bethlehem Lutheran School, said of audience reaction.

Now, How Skinny Jeans Saved The Universe, written especially for Bethlehem Lutheran students, could get laughs in any number of tens of thousands of schools across the country.

Pioneer Drama Service, a Colorado-based script distributor, has accepted the 20-minute play, written by Jeffrey Payne of Richland with the help of Bethlehem Lutheran students, for its 2016-17 catalog. The catalog is shared with 100,000 middle and high schools around the United States.

The development means some financial payback for Payne and the school, as they will receive royalties each time a school performs the play. But those involved in the production said making audiences laugh and getting students excited about the performing arts around the country has them the most excited.

“I would have loved something like that, and the kids will appreciate it years from now,” said Kathryn Payne, Bethlehem Lutheran’s drama teacher and Jeffrey Payne’s wife.

Kathryn Payne joined the school last fall to teach an elective drama course. Disappointed in the lack of variety available for middle school drama productions, she turned to her husband for help in writing a play of their own.

Jeffrey, one of the co-writers for last spring’s historical drama Guns of Ireland at Tri-Cities Prep, said he wanted students to inform as much of the play as possible and acted on many of their suggestions. He threw in various historical and pop culture references as well.

“I wanted to do something anybody could find funny,” he said. “In theater, we too often take ourselves too seriously.”

Despite characters ranging from a skateboarder and modern political figures to Disney’s Cruella De Vil and a Disney copyright attorney, the play is meant to be a simple production, with no real set required and minimal costuming for the cast.

Most of the play’s original cast played at least two characters, though eighth-grader Sarah Cloninger played six. Her favorite? Russian president Vladimir Putin.

“Just because of his real personality, he just thinks he’s all that,” she said.

It was hard to fit the play within 20 minutes, the students said, a requirement for February’s Lutheran Elementary Schools Tournament in Portland. And there were a lot of changes along the way. But it was fun to do, largely because they got to develop the characters themselves, they said.

“It was funny and it was all about comedy,” said seventh-grader Liam Lozano Morin.

Jeffrey Payne submitted his script to Pioneer and other publishers earlier this spring. The script distributor accepted it partially because it was a funny and silly production but also because it wouldn’t be difficult for a school to put on.

“A lot of school productions are done with limited resources,” said editor Brian Taylor. “They might have a stage or not a stage at all.”

The students already wonder if they should do a sequel, but Jeffrey said he’s ready to move on to something a little more serious for the school’s next production. He’s already developing a production with a dystopian bent.

“It’s called, A Play About Bacon and Robots,” he said.

This story was originally published May 15, 2016 at 7:12 PM with the headline "Play written for Kennewick private school to be distributed nationally (with video)."