Was it Colonel Mustard in the study with the wrench? If you followed the clues during the Bromfield School’s fall production last weekend, you would know it wasn’t just Colonel Mustard. It was all the characters who stole the show.
The Bromfield Drama Society and Skylight Youth Theater Company presented “Clue,” a two-hour play based on both the Parker Brothers board game and the 1985 film of the same name. The show ran from Friday, Nov. 7, through Sunday, Nov. 9, with two evening performances and two matinees. There wasn’t a single lead in the show; instead, seven actors shared the spotlight, delivering one-liners and performing bouts of physical comedy to raucous laughter from the audience.
If there were a lead role to be had, it would have been the butler, Wadsworth, played by senior Luke Bala. Dressed in a tux, Bala moved the characters from scene to scene seamlessly. And he enjoyed a monologue at the end of the show which, on opening night, included performing a song from a popular movie.
“I was told I could choose any song, and I decided that ‘Your Idol’ from ‘K-pop Demon Hunters’ [Sony, 2025] would probably relate with the most people and make them laugh,” said Bala. “I was preparing for that song at the end. I had been practicing for days. It was the highlight of opening night for me.”
In addition to the only song solo in the show, Bala also spent a lot of time practicing the physical comedy that took center stage during the performance. He wasn’t alone. Senior Adelle Besse, who played Colonel Mustard, garnered more than chuckles from the audience with her character’s antics.
“I really liked the dining room scene—that was one of my favorites,” said Besse. After climbing over five of her dinner companions’ laps to reach her seat at the end of the table, she grabbed a basket of bread and continued to deliver her lines around mouthfuls of carbs. “I got to eat an entire loaf of bread on stage. I don’t know if anyone saw that, but I ate two hot dog rolls during that scene. I don’t know how I didn’t puke every night, but it was so fun.”
A level of trust
“Clue” was the debut production of Skylight Youth Theater, established by Harvard resident Liz Ruark, who has worked with the schools’ theater programs in the past. “I know a lot of these kids, and some of them I’ve known since they were really little,” said Ruark. “There was a certain level of trust already baked in because the core group that I’d worked with last spring had already worked with me as a director.”
“[Ruark] is coordinated, she knows what she’s doing, and she knows how to communicate with us,” said Bala. “She knows what we need to hear and what we want to hear. She gives us so much freedom. She’s the whole reason why I could do a custom song.”
“This is a team sport. It’s too big a job for one person,” said Ruark of the dozen volunteers who helped make the show a success. “I’m blessed that I have Eric Ward, who is a set designer and builder. Kelly Thomas is a professional set painter. She worked in regional theater. My spouse has done community theater, lighting design, and has experience with sound. I had all of these people who had areas of expertise that I was able to draw on.”
There was a notable low attendance during at least two of the performances. However, Ruark was pleased with the turnout. “The attendance at school shows tends to be proportional to the size of the cast, as it’s typically made up primarily of friends and family,” she said. “With all the organizational work involved in getting settled into this program, we didn’t focus as much on publicity for this production as I would have liked. I’m hoping to work with students and parents to gather marketing ideas, and get [volunteers] on board to help with this area of the program.”
On the Skylight Youth Theater’s Instagram, there were “Clue’s” dropped to entice excitement about the upcoming, all-school spring musical production. It seems Ruark will be using a super trouper to find a dancing queen to take the stage in late March for “Mamma Mia.”
