Cast members of 12 Angry Men at rehearsal on April 13, 2023. (Photo Courtesy Chris Brown)

By Chris Brown

‘Perfect’ casting at the core of Medicine Hat Musical Theatre’s 12 Angry Men

Apr 14, 2023 | 1:38 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Director Colleen Whidden says the characters and the story are the heroes of the revered and award-winning drama 12 Angry Men.

So she knew just the right people had to be in just the right roles when casting the upcoming Medicine Hat Musical Theatre production.

She says it’s been a success saying the 12 jurors and one guard are perfect for the roles they’re in.

“They have really got deep with their characters and so that is, and how they’re interacting with each other, is truly amazing and so it’s the actors themselves have really spent a lot of time doing character analysis bringing and really bringing their character to life,” she says.

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She says each of the actors feeds off of one another throughout, ebbing and flowing as the story progresses.

The play focuses on jury deliberations in a murder case in which the accused is a 16-year-old boy. Whidden says what unfolds is a revealing of the characters and their different perspectives, biases and thoughts about society, murder and more.

12 Angry Men was written by Reginald Rose and initially broadcast as a television play in 1954. It was adapted for the stage the next year and then a feature film in 1957. Many more remakes and adaptations have been done since.

Taking place largely on a one-room set and without the large and loud musical numbers or zany comedy of previous MHMT plays, 12 Angry Men has to rely on other means to keep the audience hooked.

One of those is the revolving set, which Whidden is excited about and says is one of the first for the company.

“What it allows the audience to do is to obviously see all of the characters at the same time,” she explains. “But we actually made it go counterclockwise because we wanted it to feel a little unsettling because counterclockwise is not quite as settling as clockwise. And we wanted to go back in time because this was a look back in time at what this young man had done and look back at the case. So there’s a little bit of an underlying, underlying aspect of how the actual set is supporting the storyline.”

Still, the director says even though they’re looking back in that context, the issues raised by the play are not a thing of the past.

She says she hopes people leave the theatre with a lot to talk about, think about and analyze.

“It’s a really pivotal piece for this time to really look at, are these concepts that we feel are in our past are they really in our past?”

There are six showings of 12 Angry Men from April 20-29.

Get tickets and more information at mhmtheatre.com.