A local high school theater team will hit the stage this weekend to give its interpretation of a 1939 Joseph Kesselring play, Arsenic and Old Lace.

The Washington High School Playmakers will present the play Oct. 24 and Oct. 25 at 7 p.m. in the Washington High School Auditorium, featuring a total of 16 students between the stage tech crew and the cast, said theater teacher and director Travis Carter. Tickets are $5 at the door, which Carter says is well worth the performance the audience will witness.

The play follows a New York film critic, Mortimer, who visits his aunts’ house, discovers a dead body and puts the blame on his crazy sister, Teddy Brewster, who swears she is Teddy Roosevelt, Carter said. From there, the drama unfolds as another sister, who has traveled the world with an alcoholic plastic surgeon, Dr. Einstein, arrives in New York. Meanwhile, a list of old, lonely men pops up dead and a police detective is digging in to get to the bottom of the case. Who is the killer?

Carter said the production, which originally called for 11 men and 3 women, is a little different on the Playmakers’ stage. The team had to change the dynamic of gender roles due to a lack in male participation. One role, however, was not reversed, that of Mr. Witherspoon, played by senior Taylor Abele.

“Due to lack of males because they’re all on the football team, we sort of reversed it,” Carter said. “I think we have three males and the rest are females. [Mr. Witherspoon] is the only character we didn’t change to a female character.”

Though student involvement is predominantly seniors, there are a few freshmen and sophomores that are part of the production, Carter said. However, the senior lineup, much of which returns to the stage from past productions like the group’s last production, Little Shop of Horrors, carries the majority of the main characters. Abele, a fourth-year member of the group, said the play is her fifth or sixth as a high school student, and she will be joined by fellow seniors — Rachel Alligood, Heather Shea, Amy Arnold, Alexis Murdock and Diani Teixeira — for one of the last performances they will give together.

“To me, being part of a production is just absolutely amazing,” Abele said. “I love the feel of the stage, but I also love the feel of backstage because the people you get to work with is absolutely amazing. We’re all like family and this is our home, we put our life into it, we built it from the ground up and it’s just a great place to come be who we are.”

Carter said the students have taken more and more responsibility as the play has progressed — from auditions the first week of school to the week of the play. The set, which is filled with antique furniture and part of a long history of WHS plays, was, for the most part, put together by the students. One piece in particular, the walls of the set, has been used by WHS Playmakers for a decade or more, Carter said.

“Everything is student done,” Carter said. “The set was put up by the Stage Tech Class, we went out and rounded up props and costumes, and the students pretty much do everything. As this week progresses, with it being dress rehearsals, I’m doing less and less, and the students are doing more and more. By Friday and Saturday, I’m going to be a spectator. They’re going to do it all, and they do it really well.”