Hannah Wylie — who plays Micah in “The Internet is Distract-OH LOOK, A KITTEN!” in the Lake Placid High School fall play — sits at her desk at rehearsal on Nov. 1. (News photo — Lauren Yates)

LAKE PLACID — Stage lights will shine again on a Lake Placid High School theater production this Thursday, Nov. 4, the school’s first full show since before the coronavirus pandemic started in March 2020. The comedy show — “The Internet is Distract-OH LOOK, A KITTEN!” — explores “the rabbit hole we go down every time we go online.”

Cast members were buzzing with excitement as they arrived at their first dress rehearsal Monday, Nov. 1. Kitten mews could be heard across the auditorium, but there weren’t any cats around — just the performers, some wearing cat ears, filtering into the house.

Director Brenden Gotham was watching cat videos at the front of the stage, trying to create the perfect mashup music to play for the show’s start. Part of the sequence featured an audio clip of a Collective Soul song, interspersed with kitten mews whenever the song’s beat dropped out.

Kent Streed, box office operator and resident designer at Pendragon Theatre, was there for a pre-rehearsal costume fitting. He had assorted costumes draped over the front row seats, and he called performers down one by one for a fitting, according to their character names.

“Grandma!”

Andrew Scanio, who plays Tyler, appears on-screen during rehearsal Nov. 1 as his character Facetimes Micah in “The Internet is Distract-OH LOOK, A KITTEN!” school play at the Lake Placid High School. (News photo — Lauren Yates)

“Twitter!”

The simple set has two large frames, one on stage right and one on stage left, where different performers who play various internet apps appear throughout the show to assist Micah, the main character, as she attempts to finish her essay on “The Great Gatsby.” But as the play’s title suggests, her journey to finish the essay is a distracting one as she navigates internet research.

At center stage is Micah’s room, where there’s a desk, a bookshelf with assorted books and knick-knacks, and a chair with a fuzzy peace sign blanket — but those aren’t just props. The items belong to Lake Placid High senior Hannah Wylie, who plays Micah. Wiley sat at her desk on stage, singing lightly as she waited for rehearsal to start.

She said she relates to Micah on multiple levels, mainly because she often finds herself distracted by the internet.

“I think I get into character as Micah more than I would like to admit,” Wiley said. “It’s quite easy to snap into that.”

To get into character, Wylie said she thinks about those times when she’s been spending too much time on the internet, and how that makes her feel.

“It really does hurt your relationship with yourself and other people,” she said.

Her co-star, junior Andrew Scanio, who plays Micah’s best friend Tyler, said he’s familiar with that feeling, too.

“I hate to admit it — I’m addicted. I’m addicted,” he said.

Wylie and Scanio know what it’s like to juggle school work and internet use, but they also participate in multiple extracurricular activities. Wylie is in the high school’s chorus, and she’s directing a radio show of “It’s a Wonderful Life” this winter. She’s opening auditions Monday, Nov. 8, giving her just one day off from theater work before launching into another project. She’s also applying to multiple colleges, looking at continuing her theater education at schools like Belmont, New York University, Harvard and Yale. When asked how she gets it all done, she said, “(I) try to stay off the internet as much as possible.”

Gotham said that even though Wylie is new to Lake Placid High School this year, “she’s just done outstanding work since she’s been here.”

Between being in theater, chorus, cross country running and cross-country skiing, Scanio said he also has some late homework nights. But despite their busy schedules, the actors are happy to return to the stage after over a year-and-a-half of a closed curtain.

Scanio was cast as Prince Charming in the school’s performance of “Cinderella” in winter of 2020, and he worked tirelessly to learn his lines and attend daily rehearsals from January through the beginning of March. Then, two weeks before the show was due to open, the school closed and the performances were canceled.

“We were all pretty sad, but I’m glad we’re back now,” he said.

Gotham said he feels bad that nearly two years of Scanio’s acting career have been cut off by the pandemic, and he was happy to cast Scanio in the role of Tyler.

“He was a natural fit for the part,” he said.

Even though students will be masked during the performances, no one was complaining. Gotham asked students on Monday what masks they wanted to wear on stage, because he wanted everyone to have the same mask color and style. They all decided on black medical masks, which will allow them to project their voices better than a cloth mask.

Wylie said that despite the show’s goofiness, it’s an “important show” — not just for the messaging around internet overuse, but for the community’s opportunity to support the theater as it emerges from the pandemic.

“I think it’s really exciting to embrace the new opportunities that we took for granted,” Wylie said.

Gotham said he’s directed the fall play for around 16 years, and he normally picks a drama. But this year, he said he wanted to give the kids an opportunity to have some fun after a long period of isolation, while still being able to socially distance on stage.

“You can see the kids glowing from doing the thing they love and what they haven’t been able to do for so long,” he said. “It’s really powerful. It’s made me realize how much I love it and how good it is to be back.”

This will be the first show in the renovated theater space, too. The auditorium has new seats, lighting, wings, sound system and ceiling.

“We’re happy to show it off,” Gotham said.

The show will run at 7 p.m. from Nov. 4 to Nov. 6 in the LPHS auditorium. Tickets are $5 per person, and audience members are required to wear masks. Gotham said seating will be limited to the first 100 people who purchase tickets each night, so audience members can maintain social distancing. People can start filling the house at 6:30.