The school year has just begun and Niles West Theatre is already prepared to set up a once in a lifetime show just for you. This will be the sixth year that the International Thespian Society  Troupe 1714 will be presenting their annual Thespian production. This year’s production is called, “Proof”. The show will be held in the Black Box theater at Niles West on Thursday, Aug. 30, at 5 p.m., Friday, Aug. 31, at 4 & 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, Sept. 1, at 4 p.m. Tickets for students will be $7 and for adults, $9. You can purchase the tickets online at NilesWestTheatre.com. 

Theatre teacher and director of the production, Andrew Sinclair, is excited to start off the year with this comedic modern drama play.

“Proof is all about a woman named Catherine who is 25 years old and very closed off to others around her,” said Sinclair. “A big life thing happens where her sister comes home. Catherine and her sister are total polar opposites. Their father was a famous mathematician and one of his former students came looking through his father’s stuff and they came upon a math proof. They’re trying to figure out who wrote it and who would be brilliant enough to compose something like that. In a strange way, it’s a play about math but not about math.”

There will only be four actors throughout the entire show. Senior Kenan Ozer will assume the role of Hal, Senior Lily Gussis will play the sister Claire, and Catherine, the lead role of the show, will be played by senior Leah Nano. Nano has put only hard work and dedication in this role to make sure her performance is flawless.

“I’m very excited to play Catherine because she is very misunderstood and I feel like I relate to her a lot. I prepared for the play by constantly going over lines until it was muscle memory. I was super scared that I wouldn’t be able to memorize my lines, but they almost became like a second nature,” said Nano.

While Nano was so focused on memorizing her lines, Senior Moe Dasser was busy trying to figure out how to become his character, Robert. Having to play the role of an older man is slightly difficult when you have no experience in that field, yet.

“It took a lot for me to slow down and assume the role of a father and a genius so it was a nice change of pace. It’ll be hard to get rid of all the things that make me young so I like the challenge,” said Dasser.

The production will definitely be worth watching with all the challenge and effort put into it. Auditions were held back in May, Crew started in July and the cast started rehearsing a week before school started meaning they only had a month of preparation. But the cast seems confident and ready to perform this play that has such a unique storyline.

“This play is all about what is true, and how do you prove something is true when everyone else thinks it’s false,” said Sinclair.