This year’s fall play production from the Benet Academy drama troupe is The Woman in Black.

The Woman in Black is a 1987 stage play, adapted by Stephen Mallatratt. The play is based on the book of the same name, which was published in 1983 by English author Susan Hill. The play is notable for only having two actors perform the whole story. The production opened in London’s West End in 1989 and is still being performed there, becoming the second longest-running non-musical play in West End history, after The Mousetrap.

The story begins in a theater where the “old” Arthur Kipps has hired a young actor to help him with elocution lessons so he can tell his family about a tragic incident that befell him as a young lawyer. The play goes from narration to action as the young actor becomes the young Kipps, and the old man takes on all the characters he encountered while young.

As a junior solicitor, the young Kipps journeys to the small market town of Crythin Gifford to attend the funeral of a client, Mrs. Alice Drablow. At the funeral, he sees a young woman with a wasted face, dressed all in black, standing in the churchyard.

Bemused by the villages’ reluctance to speak of the woman in black, Arthur goes to Eel Marsh House, Mrs. Drablow’s former abode, an old building in the middle of a marsh, which is cut off from the mainland at high tide. Sorting through Mrs. Drablow’s papers, he finds a box of letters, and ultimately discovers the dreadful secret of the Woman in Black- to his own terrible cost.

The Benet Production begins on Thursday, November 16. This performance will be an open dress rehearsal which will begin at 4pm (students may attend this dress rehearsal performance). Opening Night will be Friday, November 17 at 7pm. The other two performances are Saturday, November 18 at 7pm and Sunday, November 19 at 2pm. St. Daniel’s hall will open one hour before showtime, and the theater doors will open one half hour before showtime. Tickets are $5 and will be sold at lunch and on performance nights if still available. The director is Mr. John Leffler, the set director is Mr. Adam Akin, the assistant directors are Evan Lindquist and Jaime Yerkes, and the stars of the play are Nicholas Geoghegan and Andrew Takahashi.