ABOVE: Students Kira Murphy, Mylette Cabrera and Abi Peyman during a rehearsal of 'Alibis' on Tuesday at Fairmont High School.

FAIRMONT- The Alibis; this year’s spring play at Fairmont High School will open on Saturday. The production is the largest spring play performed at Fairmont since at least 2016.

“In the seven years I’ve been directing this is the largest cast I’ve had,” said director Sara Gudahl.

While previous spring plays typically include between 16 and 20 students this year’s play has 36 cast members. It will run for approximately 100 minutes with no intermission on Saturday and Sunday.

The play is a comedic mystery which is made up of eight 10 minute unconnected plays which are sandwiched between an introduction and conclusion. While the play’s first and last segments were written by a single person, each of the eight middle segments was written by a different playwright and tells its own story.

The play begins with the murder of billionaire J. Leslie Arlington after which each of the main characters is interrogated during the investigation. Because these stories are largely self-contained they allow for a wider range of speaking roles.

“Each scene is within its own story … each of the main characters have their own alibi. Within their alibi they tell the story of how they are innocent and in those stories there’s a lot of background characters,” said Trey Tumbleson, a senior at Fairmont High School who plays one of these background characters.

Christian Thom plays one of the show’s main characters, a rival of Arlington who proves his innocence by detailing how he wanted to murder Arlington but his plot which ultimately failed.

“He’s very excited to murder J. Leslie Arlington that night, but he gets stopped by something very inconvenient,” said Thom.

Because each character has less stage time students’ roles can be more open to interpretation.

“I basically made him my own character, I looked at a lot of other schools’ productions and I really ended up taking a different approach,” said Thom.

“We all have free will to interpret it how we want so we can make it our own little thing,” said Abigail Sundeen, another senior member of the cast.

The wide range of characters and playwrights brings a broad range of comedic tones, ensuring audiences will likely receive something that suits their comedic tastes.

Jenna Spencer is a senior who plays a supporting character in one segment.

“We would laugh through our scenes or somebody else would start laughing when somebody else was laughing in the audience. It’s super funny so it’s really hard to get through without laughing on stage,” said Spencer.

While this proved to be a challenge in rehearsals it was one factor that helped bring members of the cast closer together.

“We’re like one big family so it’s always fun when we’re (rehearsing),” said Spencer.

Gudahl credits the large cast to the gradual expansion of Fairmont’s theatre program and a greater interest in more dialogue heavy productions.

“While it doesn’t have the music, the dancing or the instruments kids are starting to figure out that that’s where the acting skills come from,” said Gudahl.

The larger cast is also due to an influx in first timers; Gudahl estimates roughly 40 percent of the cast are in a speaking role for their first time.

“One of my most exciting things is how young and new this cast is. It’s been fun to have my veterans teaching and my new kids learning and seeing what that blend looks like,” said Gudahl.

The play will be performed at 7 p.m. on Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sunday at the Performing Arts Center at Fairmont High School.