by Julia Shuttleworth. @julia.shuttle.worth.it.
ORLANDO, Fl. - The Riverside High School Drama Club wrapped its production of Seussical last Saturday night, but following the cast’s trip to a local Waffle House, police have been unable and unwilling to locate the teens, last seen attempting a dramatic re-enactment of the diner scene from tick, tick…BOOM!
“I asked if I could take her order and this girl just broke out into a god damn song,” claimed Rhonda “None of Your Business What My Last Name Is.” “Then, when she did order, she got a single pancake ‘for the table’ and a water. We don’t even sell pancakes here.”
Ray Henderson, the Waffle House’s visibly drunk manager, recounted in harrowing detail what went down that night.
“So I’m just minding my business when all of a sudden 80 kids in clown makeup bust in here at one in the morning, crying and ‘zip-zap-zopping,’ whatever that means," said Ray, flicking a lit cigarette at a stray actor. "They were telling me about how the girl from the ensemble was in love with the tenor playing Horton the elephant, and I didn’t know how to tell her, but he was gay as hell.”
Ray went on to add more harrowing detail to the account.
“The last straw was when I go out to the parking lot and hear two of those kids fucking, only to find out they weren’t: they were performing a number from Spring Awakening. Now I have been sober for the last thirty-seven years, but that night I drove myself down to the nearest liquor store and I gave that all up. That’s not the kind of thing you can unsee."
One of the students, soprano Mary Whittaker, went missing immediately after asking if she could tip “in song". The kidnappers eventually returned her after she kept talking about the 2017 Tony Awards. Whittaker’s parents thanked the kidnappers for “taking her off their hands” for a couple days.
If anybody has any tips about the teens’ whereabouts, the school is requesting they hold off on telling anybody until after that improv show they keep inviting people to.