On April 5, Heritage High School’s theater came together and performed their student-made production of “A Simpler Time” by Jonathan Dorf to an audience full of supporters.

A Simpler Time is a comedy about time-traveling. The play was performed in the school’s auditorium at 6:00 pm and was open to the public for 5 dollars per person. 

“A Simpler Time is about three best friends, one of them made a time machine, and they search for a simpler time in society. Long story short, there isn’t a simpler time,” said Ashley Flesher (11).

We first meet our three teenagers as one is complaining about the current era and how awful it is. Fortunately, her friend Marley reveals she has created a time machine because of the amount of stress this era was causing her. The teens then use the time machine to travel to different times, trying to find the simplest one. The first one is the medieval times when a young girl’s parents believed her to be a witch due to her refusal to marry a much older lord. They then travel to see the founding fathers but they find that time to be sexist and unequal. Hoping to find peace in good honest work, they head to the industrial revolution. However, the workers are incredibly mistreated and try many different methods to get a break on weekends, even faking death! By this point, the time machine has begun to wear out and a malfunction occurs when they try to fix it. The malfunction sends them to the future with a family that lives in a dystopian society where nature is fake! The family’s son is aware of all this and tries to make his clueless family see that it isn’t real. In desperation, he turns off the nature simulation which leads to him being taken away for violating the rules. The last place they try to find simplicity is in an alternate universe. In this alternate universe, we see a mother trying to convince her daughter to go on a hike with her but the daughter is too busy playing a video game to care. The mom is worried that her daughter will turn out unsociable and friendless. This exact situation repeats itself but each time the mother in the last timeline is now the child complaining about hiking. In the end, the teenagers resolve that although there isn’t a simpler time and the best thing they can do is enjoy the current time to the fullest!

There were many moments during the play where the crowd laughed out loud. All of the joy created was from the wonderful cast of actors from Heritage’s theater program. Many of the actors plan to continue to act in the future.

“I’m planning on taking Theatre 3 and I also want to do the TheaterSquared Shakespeare Academy again,” said Flesher.

Her cast member also intends to continue acting. 

“I do see myself continuing to act in the future, even if it is just a small-town play because I love putting on a show for everyone and bringing people happiness,” said Morgan Overcash (10).

Part of the reason these actors want to get more experience in acting is because of the environment created while they prepare.

“The best part was on opening night when our time machine started falling apart. It was okay though since the time machine was meant to look like it was made of junk,” said Overcash.

Without a doubt, “A Simpler Time” was greatly executed by Heritage’s theater department and its group of excellent actors.