The Vashon High School’s Theatre Arts II class will perform the play “30 Reasons Not To Be In A Play” for one weekend only, beginning on Friday.

Playwright Alan Haehnal wrote his original script — “15 Reasons Not To Be In A Play” — as a tongue-in-cheek look at the myriad examples of why one should not be in a play. His scenes included memories of being put in a play by a second-grade teacher and then made to wear the tree costume, or the curse that befalls an actor when their father stalks him or her with a digital camera, creating embarrassing moments by shooting hundreds of photographs.

Students in Stephen Floyd’s theater class used Haehanal’s work as a springboard to write scenes based on their own reasons not to be in a play.

“I’m very pleased with the new material students have written, with only a little editing help from me,” Floyd said. “The first half of the final scene was written by a student, and I wrote the last few minutes of dialogue to bring it to a close, which is the only section of the show that I wrote myself.”

The topics students chose to bring to life include the difficulty of fitting the theater arts class into a busy schedule, the reality of backstage drama that occurs during play production, how boys interested in theater get bullied for being gay, the humiliation of wearing stupid or ugly costumes and the agony of the audition process because it seems so unfair.

“We also rewrote the ending to conclude with a character based on Holden Caufield from ‘Catcher in the Rye’ talking about how phony actors are and how nothing good can come from being in a play,” Floyd said.

The other characters then argue with Holden, trying to change his mind by telling him about the good things that have happened to them when they’ve been in plays.

“And that refers back to many of the earlier reasons not to be in a play by recognizing them as positive things, (which) closes the circle,” Floyd added.

About two dozen students have participated in the project, Floyd said — by writing, stage managing, working backstage or on lighting, as well as acting.

With the addition of the new material written by the students, “30 Reason’s Not To Be In A Play” will be the first original works to be performed at the high school since the 2007 production of “It’s a Wilder World Today: Our Town Revisited.”

The play will be performed on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m., at the VHS Theatre.

Tickets are $5. Opening night tickets are priced 2-for-1, if each individual brings a donation for the Vashon Food Bank.

All tickets are available at Vashon Bookshop, the VHS office and at the door.