(E) It is always an enjoyable experience to watch kids performing like professional actors or playing music like professional musicians. You are always touched by their level of energy, passion, and accomplishments.

So was Menlo-Atherton Drama’s Fall 2023 play, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

This is a wonderful play based on a mystery novel that is now on my list of book to read soon:

“15-year-old Christopher is exceptional at mathematics but ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. He detests being touched, distrusts strangers, and has never been outside of his neighborhood alone. After finding his neighbor’s dead dog, who has been speared with a garden fork in the middle of the night, Christopher vows to find the culprit. But his detective journey, forbidden by his father, takes him on a thrilling and emotional journey that upturns his world.”

“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Menlo-Atherton Drama’s Fall 2023 play, featured Kealy Bryman (Christopher Boone), Mackenzie Danzig (Siobhan), Ryan Dyer (Ed Boone), and Amari Witt (Judy Boone). Ben Siegel was the assistant director.

Get a closer look at the show here, see the trailer here, or get a behind-the-scenes look here.”

More from Wikipedia on the novel:

“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a 2003 mystery novel by British writer Mark Haddon. Its title refers to an observation by the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes (created by Arthur Conan Doyle) in the 1892 short story “The Adventure of Silver Blaze“. Haddon and The Curious Incident won the Whitbread Book Awards for Best Novel and Book of the Year, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book, and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize.Unusually, it was published simultaneously in separate editions for adults and children.

The novel is narrated in the first-person perspective by Christopher John Francis Boone, a 15-year-old boy who is described as “a mathematician with some behavioural difficulties” living in Swindon, Wiltshire. Although Christopher’s condition is not stated, the book’s blurb refers to Asperger syndrome (which today would be described as an autism spectrum disorder), high-functioning autism, or savant syndrome. In July 2009, Haddon wrote on his blog that “The Curious Incident is not a book about Asperger’s…if anything it’s a novel about difference, about being an outsider, about seeing the world in a surprising and revealing way. The book is not specifically about any specific disorder”, and that he, Haddon, is not an expert on the autism spectrum or Asperger syndrome.

The book uses prime numbers to number the chapters, rather than the conventional successive numbers. Originally written in English, it has been translated into 36 additional languages.“

Note 1: You can still see the show today Saturday or tomorrow Sunday.

Note 2: The picture above is from Menlo-Atherton Drama School.

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