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Somewhere in the middle of “Play On!,” a pair of actors will freeze in place, hold lightsabers aloft and pose while the Star Wars theme plays.
It has nothing to do with the plot. Director Vance Jones does not care.
“The audience will be like, what is happening,” Jones said. He tried it at rehearsal. It works.
That moment is one of several Easter eggs Jones has planted throughout “Play On!,” the Rick Abbot comedy opening April 17 at the Twin Lakes Playhouse. The show follows a community theater troupe trying to stage a murder mystery called “Murder Most Foul” while the playwright keeps rewriting it out from under them. The killer changes. Characters appear from nowhere. The cast falls apart. And the audience gets to watch all of it happen.
Jones said he borrowed bits from film, stage and television and scattered them across the production for audiences paying close attention.
“It’s kind of meta,” he said. “It’s the whole show within a show, so it doesn’t take itself too seriously.”
The three-act structure mirrors the stages of putting on a play. Act One is the rehearsal. Act Two is the dress rehearsal. Act Three is opening night, complete with the full set revealed for the first time. Jones compared it to “Noises Off,” the British farce famous for backstage chaos, and said the comedy lives and dies on timing.
“It’s out this door, in this door,” he said. “It’s bringing this in, taking that out. It’s hitting those marks, not only with the sound effects, but with what they’re saying and what’s happening backstage.”
The cast of 10 was chosen from nearly 40 auditions. Jones mixed Playhouse veterans with newer performers and said the chemistry has been one of the production’s strengths.
Gabe Potter brings what Jones described as total physical commitment to his role. “He will fall down on command,” Jones said.
Anne Johnson, who directed the Playhouse’s previous production “Farce of Habit,” is making her first real stage appearance. Karen McKaig returns after a standout turn in “Nonsense.” Mike Horberg, who directed before Johnson, is also in the cast.
Sullivan Dye, who played Jake in “Pine Hollow,” is being developed as a leading man. Jones has been coaching him accordingly.
“If you’re going to be a leading man, you’ve got to know how to get the girl,” Jones told Dye. “You’ve got to have some swagger. You’ve got to be smooth.”
Jones shifted the entire production schedule back a week after a young actress he wanted for a key role was committed to the Mountain Home High School production of “Wonderland” during the original dates.
“She was fantastic,” he said of her audition.
Josselyn serves as assistant director on her first production in that role, with veteran Diane Pankau mentoring her through the process. Pat McKaig plays the stage manager, a man steadily losing patience with everyone around him. Denise Jones and Kyria Johnson, both from “Farce of Habit,” round out the cast.
The production will debut on a freshly resurfaced stage, a project sponsored by Tink Albright. Jones had years of accumulated paint stripped away before any set pieces went up.
“All the paint and everything that’s been on there for years and years is gone,” he said. “It’s so nice.”
Jones said the Playhouse has been building momentum. Season ticket sales have grown from around 140 to 180 since he arrived about two and a half years ago, and the organization added roughly 1,500 Facebook followers between the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons.
“We’re backing it up with quality,” he said. “And I think that says something about what we’re choosing to put on the stage and who we’re choosing to put in the shows.”
A sponsor preview performance will be held April 16, the night before opening, with proceeds benefiting the Playhouse.
“Play On!” runs Fridays and Saturdays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m., April 17 through May 3 at the Twin Lakes Playhouse in Mountain Home. Tickets are $16.50 and available at tlpmh.org or by calling the box office at (870) 424-0444.
