Saxon Stage After Hours presents a workshop performance of a brand new, student-written play, Gravediggers. Gravediggers is an original dark comedy play following six inhabitants of a run-down historic estate in rural Montana and the secrets they bury down deep in the ground.

On one side of the Boothe Estate lies a graveyard, garden, gift shop, and mansion, home to aging property owner, Boothe, and lonely gravedigger employee, Pete. On the other side stands a small church and clergy house, now a part-time chapel, run by Reverend Margot, and a funeral home, run by her sister-in-law, Audrey, and Audrey’s teenage niece, Joyce.

When new groundskeeper Nellie arrives at the Boothe Estate, plants suddenly die, invasive insects take over, and a new romance rewrites tombstones, leaving secrets sprawled out across the overgrown lawn. The Boothe Estate’s odd occupants and even odder staff members must learn to let their skeletons out of the closet in a story of love, destruction, and obsessions with death.

Gravediggers is produced by Saxon Stage After Hours, Langley High School’s student-run production group. A short excerpt of Gravediggers was originally performed in November 2022 at Closing Time, a night of staged script readings written and performed by the students of Saxon Stage After Hours. This December 2022 performance of Gravediggers will feature the full, two-act script, performed in a bare-bones workshop-style setting.

Cast includes Sarah Hilton as Nellie, Atlas Zecca as Pete, Lily Bowers as Joyce, Conor Farah as Boothe, Ava Carter as Audrey, and Lorna Evans as Margot.

Crew includes writer/director Tess Jannery-Barney, stage managers Jenny Mears and Izzy Steenburgh, set design by Killian Korchnak, and lighting design by Cassie Keating.

Gravediggers performs on Saturday, December 10th at 3 pm & 6:30 pm in the Langley High School Black Box Theater at 6520 Georgetown Pike, McLean, VA 22101. Tickets $5 at the door. www.saxonstage.com