On Thursday, Nov. 6, and Friday, Nov. 7, in the Black Box Theater, we were dazzled by Kingswood Oxford’s 2025 Fall Play “Birthday Candles,” directed by Director of Theater Kyle Reynolds and assistant directed by senior Teague Shamleffer.
Through the play, we follow Ernestine (played by junior Molly Palmer) from her 17th birthday to her 104th, only ever seeing the characters on her birthday. Along with Molly, seniors Miles Gruber, Leo Kollen, Brayden Bak, Gordon Beck, junior Sarah Balog, sophomore Lily Jacobson, and freshman Coraline Picard starred in the show.
This is KO’s first fall play in two years, as last fall, Mr. Reynolds decided to change it up with a musical, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” on the stage. Returning to the Black Box this year with a more somber tone, “Birthday Candles” was a mix of heartwarming and funny as audiences saw all the moments, good or bad, in Ernestine’s life. In his director’s note, Mr. Reynolds stated: “This show has been a profound reminder of how fragile and fleeting time really is – and how it feels when time runs out.”
As time progressed on stage, the characters aged, eventually taking the actors out of their teenage selves and assuming many personas as they moved through time in only a few hours. Leo played Billy, Ernestine’s son, a character who takes things personally and enjoys playing the piano. From his birth to his eventual death, Billy is a pivotal character who causes tension and togetherness in the family.
While their aging is evident through the lines of the play, other factors were critical in portraying aging. “A lot of the playing the age was in my body language,” Leo said, “my facial expressions, who I was looking at. When I was younger, I was kind of this rebellious teen who didn’t really care to look at either of his parents and was mostly looking out or into himself or down,” he explained. “But then, as he gets older and closer to his mother, he’s looking towards her much more often.” For Leo and many other cast members, his role also included research. Specifically, Leo researched Alzheimer’s disease, the cause of Billy’s death. He learned how it changes the mind and how people with Alzheimer’s behave.
Even on the other side of the stage, portraying the change of times was something that needed practice. Coming back as assistant director, Teague took on a larger role than he had previously done in “The Grownups.” Having more experience on the stage, observing and earning, Teague worked hand in hand with Mr. Reynolds for this production.
One main task of his was arranging the projections of Ernestine’s age that occurred during every blackout. “ Originally, what Mr. Reynolds wanted was a calendar,” Teague noted, “whose page would magically fall each time there was a blackout. Until we finally realized it’s pretty much impossible.” The solution was the aforementioned projections. “ Working through that was very difficult because the story doesn’t give you those ages in the actual writing,” he said. “There are some offhanded comments about what birthday she’s at, or maybe you can kind of deduce what age she is.” While tricky, the projections played an important role in the play, making time pass smoothly and leaving the audience informed.
A special bonus of this production was that each night a birthday cake was produced on stage by Molly! This ended the play with a fully decorated cake for Ernestine to blow out the candles on her final birthday. This process was ongoing throughout rehearsals. “Every Tuesday, after Molly and I decide on a 44-step process, we baked a birthday cake,” Mr. Reynolds wrote. Just as important as the cake was to the story was the portrayal of the baking for an audience. With this, the kitchen was the focal point of the set, where most of the story occurs, which had tons of storage for ingredients and many cakes.
A musical collaborator for the play was Upper and Middle School Choral Director Thomas Griffith. He debuted an original thematic score for “Birthday Candles” with the collaboration of Mr. Reynolds and the creative team in the Department of Theater and Dance. Music is a major character interest of Billy, having Leo learn and play a piano piece on stage during the performance. This allowed Leo’s family to have a piece of the play as well, as he practiced at home with his dad. “ I got the sheet music from Mr. Griffith, and then I gave it to my dad,” he said, “and we worked out the piece together. So it was a really nice moment.”
The play surely left the audience amazed by the performance from everyone, on stage or not, and maybe left them with tears in their eyes. We can’t wait to see what spectacular performance KO Theater puts on for the winter musical!
