Stillwater Christian play puts 'Murder' in black and white

Stillwater Christian School’s theater department will be performing in nothing but shades of gray during “The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940” this weekend at the Bigfork Center for Performing Arts.

Three shows are scheduled — Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 2 and 7 p.m. Tickets are $8 for adults and $6 for students and seniors. It is the one and only performance for the school’s theater students.

Jen Stebbins-Han is directing the show, a slapstick, family-friendly comedy about a pair of murders at a mansion in New York, and decided to take a unique approach with the play’s set design and makeup.

“We’re doing the whole show in grayscale,” Stebbins-Han said. “I didn’t even know it was a thing until I started researching and I realized I wanted to do the whole show in black and white.”

All of the set has been painted in shades of gray and during the last several weeks Stebbins-Han has been experimenting with makeup for all of her actors. The goal, ideally, is for the audience to experience the play as if they were watching a black and white movie.

“We’ve got face paint contoured in different shades of gray, everywhere that shows,” Stebbins-Han explained. “We’re actually using black food coloring to swish around and make our mouths look black.”

The show features 19 Stillwater Christian students as members of the cast and crew. This is Stebbins-Han’s sixth year directing productions for the school.

For more information, visit www.stillwaterchristianschool.org.