Trey Mariano, right, and Sophia Thomsen rehearse a scene in the Lake Placid Dram Club fall play on Monday, Oct. 20 at the Lake Placid Middle/High School. (News photo — Grace McIntyre)

LAKE PLACID — What do vampires with rhyming dictionaries and roller-skating grandmas have in common? You’ll have to come to this week’s production by the Lake Placid Drama Club to find out.

The fall play is called “Night Night, Roger Roger,” and it was written by Roni Ragone in 2023. The first showing is on Friday, Oct. 24 at 7 p.m., with subsequent showings on Saturday, Oct. 25 at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. in the Lake Placid Middle/High School auditorium.

The story is loosely based on two young girls who talk to each other using two cans connected with string, then fall asleep. The rest of the play is a dream sequence made up of short vignettes with interlocking themes and ideas.

“The best synopsis is that there isn’t one,” said Savannah Corrow, a senior. “This play is somehow more confusing than last year’s.”

Instead, she said people will just have to come and see the play for themselves.

Grace Corliss gives a monologue during a rehearsal for the fall play on Oct. 20 at the Lake Placid Middle/High School. (News photo — Grace McIntyre)

Corrow has been in every show throughout her high school years, and she performed in her first theater show at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts when she was 7. Now she’s getting ready to apply to colleges and is planning on studying music education.

This year’s play has been a very unique experience for the students involved. Corrow plays two very different characters — a 9-year-old girl and a 40-year-old landlord who is a smoker. Switching between these characters has been one of the biggest challenges for her, but she said the costumes help.

Brenden Gotham, who has been directing plays at the high school for about 20 years, chose this play because of the unique challenges and opportunities it offers students. The short vignettes — which were written so that the play could be performed over Zoom with small casts in different locations — mean that a lot of the juniors and seniors get to be in two or three-person scenes and perform monologues.

“That’s a different skill and a different challenge,” Gotham said. “It’s been fun watching them grow and learn with those.”

Aside from the monologues, a lot of the other dialogue involves very short lines, and it has a stream-of-consciousness quality to it. This means the lines are sometimes a bit out-of-pocket — like the references to peaches and lima beans that crop up here and there. The students have worked hard to learn these meandering, sometimes nonsensical lines.

“It’s fun, but it also has some sweet, sincere moments too,” Gotham said. “You have to embrace the goofiness, but there are also some really beautiful parts.”

The theater club has performed some classic plays in recent years, so this new work is a change of pace. The students also had the opportunity to talk with the playwright over a Zoom call.

LPHS senior Kiera Bouchard said the format of the play means everyone gets at least a couple long scenes. There are also quite a few new students who are performing in their first play.

“We all get our chance to shine,” Bouchard said.

He is playing Zach, a clumsy, “doofus” security guard. Bouchard said it’s been fun to be himself on stage and to dig deeper into a slightly ridiculous character.

“It’s just a stupid show,” he said. “It’s stupid, it’s fun. Every scene has its own charm.”

The students want to encourage their friends and community to come see this one-of-a-kind show.

“Come for a laugh, have fun,” Bouchard said.