photo by: Contributed

Hailee Shrimplin, a 7th grader at Eudora Middle School, wrote a story that will be performed by actors at Theatre Lawrence in February.

After crafting a story about two rival kingdoms and a third secretly pulling the strings, middle schooler Hailee Shrimplin is about to see her story brought to life on Theatre Lawrence’s big stage.

Hailee, a seventh grader at Eudora Middle School, joined the Suitcase Stories Club, where students craft their own original stories and then see them performed by a professional troupe. It’s a club in partnership with Theatre Lawrence where students write their stories in four hands-on sessions.

Hailee said she first learned about the opportunity from an announcement over her school’s intercom. As someone who has previously been involved in her school’s play and has managed props for the Eudora Elementary School play, she jumped at the opportunity to have a play of her own.

The original intention of the program was for the students to write their stories throughout October and end the session with a school performance in November, but Hailee said the performance had been canceled and she was the only one who finished writing her play.

Hailee said her story, titled “Royal Secrets: The New Beginnings,” is a fantasy about two different kingdoms at war – Spaghetti Kingdom and Fettuccine Kingdom – and she giggled at their names while talking with the Journal-World.

“I kind of just went with they’re already at war, but I feel like what started it was they used to be at peace, but then one kingdom started talking behind the other kingdom’s back, and then they kind of just went to war,” Hailee said.

Hailee said while the two kingdoms are fighting, there’s another kingdom right in the middle of it, and that’s Salami Kingdom. While both of the other kingdoms are turning to Salami for help in the war – turns out, Salami’s manipulating the both of them to take them down.

“They’re both working with another kingdom to get information on each other,” Hailee said, referring to Salami Kingdom. “But little do the kingdoms know is that kingdom is playing them both and getting information from them to destroy both of them.”

Hailee said there wasn’t really anything specific that inspired the story, it was simply “whatever came to my mind and what I thought of.” While the warring kingdoms were named after types of pasta, Hailee said the characters were not made out of pasta, but were mostly human. There were some characters that were actually bunnies too.

photo by: Contributed

Theatre Lawrence, 4660 Bauer Farm Drive

“(There are) other creatures like bunnies and humans, kind of like ‘Alice in Wonderland’ vibes,” Hailee said.

Hailee said one of her favorite characters is the only daughter of the Fettuccine Kingdom.

“She’s got to be my favorite because her part just yelling at her parents because she finds out that they’re working with Salami Kingdom, and she is mad about it,” Hailee said. “And she’s trying to reason with them, but her parents don’t listen. And I feel like if that were me, I’d also try to reason with my parents, so she’s just kind of my favorite.”

Hailee told the Journal-World that at the club’s first meeting, they began with an exercise to help them brainstorm a story for their play.

“They brought this stuff and it was in a suitcase with stuff in it,” Hailee said. “And it was kind of what gave me the idea of Spaghetti. They brought this big plastic food and fork, and we had to brainstorm what we could think they’d be used for. Our first meeting was kind of like our brainstorming day. The second meeting we started writing, and then it just kind of went on from there.”

During the writing process, Hailee said the story was about to be so long, and one of her teachers said she could write a whole novel on it. To get her story to be acted out on the big stage, Theatre Lawrence has been working with the Eudora Schools Foundation to schedule a performance on Saturday, Feb. 7, although a time has not been set yet.

“I’m really excited that I get to see professional actors act out my play that I wrote at school,” Hailee said. “And I get to see a bunch of people watch my play … I get to see my play in action.”

Emily Shrimplin, Hailee’s mother, said both herself and Hailee’s dad were involved in theater and actually met while acting in community theater. She added that in middle school, it can sometimes be hard to find your niche, and that this happening to Hailee as a seventh grader is very exciting.

“We’re really excited,” Emily said. ” … (Hailee) was in her school play last year, and she’s just kind of taken on the theater role in our family. And she is a very creative girl, so I’m excited to see her creativity come to life.”