The Nerd Analysis

Oconomowoc High School’s “The Nerd”
Oconomowoc High School is renown for their spectacular theatrical demonstrations, but no past productions have featured the comedy and fluency of Larry Shue's ‘The Nerd’. With a cast full of talented actors, and two brillant senior directors, ‘The Nerd’ provided the audience with more laughs and amusement than a myriad of other productions. I saw this production on February 9th at the Oconomowoc Arts Center.
The plot in ‘The Nerd’ is a peculiar one, first premiered at The Milwaukee Repertory in 1981. Placed in Terre Haute, Indiana, the diegesis highlights Willium Cuthbert, a young architect who resides with his closests friends, Tansy and Axel. Willium is portrayed as a serious, focused character, and often listens to messages relayed to him on his answering machine. One fateful day, a man

Although there were no major set changes, the piece created to mimic a house in Indiana seemed quite accurate. In this show, it's incredible how such a simple set piece functioned in so many different ways. As the characters moved from the living room to the ¨kitchen¨, functioning doors and sound effects created a realistic environment for the characters to perform in. Furthermore, the window in the house was a necessary component when cottage cheese rained down on William´s potential boss in one of the final scenes. Without the window in the set, this scene would become impossible and unrealistic. Lighting also had an impact on this storyline. Throughout the play, Willum would receive calls on his voicemail. The dramatic lighting (spotlight) during the phone calls helped the audience understand the focal point in each specific scene. The phone call scenes also contained the sound of a ringing phone allowed the audience to feel comradery, and relate to Willum. Additionally, the lighting throughout the whole play demonstrated a typical household, and made the actors appear