A gunshot, a wedding anniversary, and a car accident all occur on the same night?? How can anyone know what actually happened? Well, maybe they should start paying attention to Rumors (by Neil Simon), the Marlboro High School fall play that was delightful to see and left audiences laughing hysterically all three nights it was playing.

The play opened in a wonderfully constructed house that looked very realistic while the audience learned the deputy mayor of New York, Charlee Brock , shot himself in the ear and his wife was missing. Chris Gormon (played by Lara Atry) and her husband Ken Gorman (played by Robert Landi) arrived at their house for a dinner party to celebrate Brock’s wedding anniversary, but learned what Brock did and tried to cover it up as the other guests arrived. The next set of guests arrived, Claire Ganz (played by Lauren Mazzara) and her husband Lenny Ganz (played by Ryan Shleifman) who just bought a new car, but got into a bad car accident. For the remainder of the first act, Lenny suffered from whiplash and could not move his neck leading to hilarious moments. As the Gormons try to cover up what happened while helping Brock recover, it led to confusion of who knows what and the ensuing web of lies further added to the comedy. Even more guests arrived in the form of the goofy Cusacks, Erin (played by Matt Triolo) and Cookie (played by Tailia Ciciyasvili). The Gormons keep the secret from the Cusacks by making Cookie cook the meal they plan to eat, and Erin becomes a butler helping his wife while getting people drinks. The final set of guests, Glenn Cooper (played by Alex Fernandez) and Cassie Cooper (played by Brooke Schindelheim), arrived, and began arguing as they have a very strained relationship. The Gormans wanted to keep the secret from them since Glenn is trying to run for state senate, and they do not want him involved in this mess.

The second act started off with everyone realizing that Brock shot himself, and all the lies everyone told in the first act were not true. Once everyone realized this, two cops came to the house, Officer Welch (played by Patrick Murray) and Officer Pudney (played by Julia Farella). Everyone started to panic as they did not want to let the cops know Brock shot himself, so they stall until the cops agreed to leave. While they did not originally come because of a gunshot, Glenn Cooper accidently revealed that there was one which led to the cops’ suspicion of what happened. This led to a hilarious monologue by Lenny Ganz about a fake story to trick the cops. While it was one of the most ridiculous things in the play, it was delivered with such energy that it made the whole audience laugh the entire time. This fooled the cops who while they thought the story quite incredulous, actually believed it. After the cops left, everyone rejoiced because they got away with telling the last rumor of the play.

The whole time the play was on, there was one joke after another, and they kept getting funnier as the play went on. All of the actors and actresses felt natural in their performances, and delivered all their lines in the most hilarious way possible. This was all possible due to the Little Shop of Horrors and Sweeny Todd director and producer, Anthony Greco. Hopefully, he sticks around for a few more plays as he continues to do an excellent job at guiding the plays in a wonderful direction. The rest of the production staff and other behind the scene crew members should give themselves a pat on the back as they once again outdid themselves in another fine performance. From the backdrop that was built, to the lighting and sound, nothing could have been better.

At the end of the day, let us just be happy that we were watching Rumors instead of the Hitler program!