Imagine

Every year, the middle school produces a play to entertain the faculty, staff, and students. This year’s play was Imagine, written by Doug Cooney, and directed by Mr. Magill. The play began with Sam (Ash Harrison) and his imaginary T-Rex friend (James Novinski), making mud pies in a sandbox in a playground. Suddenly, two bullies (played by Jonathan Sanford and Connor Lipscomb) came in and teased Sam for playing with his imaginary friend, saying that he needed to get some “real” friends. After this meeting, Sam and T-Rex got in a fight, which lead to them not believing in each other. However, because they stopped believing in each other, they swapped places. Sam became a crayon, and traveled through the imaginary world led by Shadow, the leader. Meanwhile, T-Rex became a real person, and met Sam’s oldest imaginary friend, Little Debbie (Carter Soderberg), who explained what had just happened. In order to get back to Sam, he must befriend a child with no imagination. T-Rex found a person just like this in Rocky (Lucas Lopez), who was sitting in a sandbox, getting his lunch stolen by bullies.When they left, T-Rex tried to become his friend. He tried to act just like Rocky, but found this way too boring, and decided to show Rocky what life is like with imagination. The sandbox became a boat, and they travelled down the Amazon River. They soon ran into alligators, but found a map of Africa in one of their mouths. Immediately, they found themselves in Africa, and two monkeys approach them to serve them lemonade. However, at second glance at the map, they realized it was upside down, and that it really was a map of Antarctica. Just as before, they found themselves in Antarctica. They weren’t prepared for the cold weather, so they ordered hot chocolate from three penguin waiters.  Rocky looked at the map again and saw that it was now covered with circles, and that they must be on the moon. The sandbox turned into a plane, and they soared off into space. They met moon creatures, who told T-Rex and Rocky that someone played tic-tac-toe on their map, rendering it useless. With nowhere else to go, they decided to visit the Grand Canyon. Meanwhile, Sam was still stuck in his imagination, and met the two princesses Tullabelle (Nico Chio) and Lullabelle (Noah Folmsbee). Like Little Debbie, they had no imaginary friend. The two ask Sam if he wanted to play a game, but it involved dressing up as a princess. Sam did not like this, and ran away, meeting Rocky and T-Rex. Without greeting each other, they hide before the princesses found them. After disappearing through the trap door, they finally lost them. With help from Shadow, Rocky and Sam returned to the real world. As soon as they arrive, the bullies came up to them. If they wanted to stay on the playground, the two had to make them laugh. Desperately, they say a joke that they didn’t understand, but the bullies found hilarious. The play ends, and the Sam and T-Rex are reunited.

This is the third middle school drama by Mr. Magill. His former plays, Schoolhouse Rock Live and Elf Jr. were big hits throughout the school. Because of the extreme amount of special effects, Imagine was very difficult to produce, but with help from Mr. Magill, who would work five days a week for three hours until the end, props from UNT, and the wonderful play set by the Novinski family`, we were able to pull it off in time. There were other problems throughout, but in the end, all went well, and the play was another hit for the school.