The audience has been waiting a year to see the end of this cliffhanger

A year after “The Hummingbird Room” was performed in the 2017 Teen Theatre Lab show, audiences can finally get closure with the sequel, “Sundown at Timberlane Drive.”

With a Thursday opening, the show runs through June 30 at the Perry Players Community Theatre.

This original production, which is written and directed by Perry Players Artistic Director Hunter Hufnagel, is the final installment of the two-part drama.

“The Hummingbird Room,” Hufnagel said, “kinda left the audience with a cliffhanger.” In this last show, “they find out what ends up happening.”

The show, which is loosely based on experiences in Hufnagel’s life, took about a year to write because he had to figure out “lots of different things” with the play.

With two acts, the show will run about two hours with a brief intermission.

“When I wrote the first show, I initially thought it would be the only show,” Hufnagel said. “After the show, cast and audience members wanted to see another part of the story. After a lot of thought, I decided to write a conclusion in another piece, due to the audience desire and cast.”

The unique aspect of the show, Hufnagel said, is that the 35 people involved with its production are high school through early college-age students. Many of the students who were involved in the production last year will be reprising those same roles.

The story, based 15 years after the last piece, features more of the same characters from "The Hummingbird Room” and introduces the audience to many characters that were discussed in the last show but were never portrayed onstage, Hufnagel said. It also shows the audience a lot of the back story that was portrayed in “The Hummingbird Room” and answers a lot of questions that weren’t answered in the last show.

However, Hufnagel is confident that even audience members who did not see the last show will still be able to follow the story and enjoy it.

Jumping from modern day back to the 1950s and to the 1970s, due to lots of memory scenes, Hufnagel said there are a lot of detailed sets and music to help the story run smoothly.

“It does tell a story that many people in the audience will be able to connect with,” he said.

Hufnagel said it will be especially fun for him since he will be “jumping back onstage” in this production as a character in the show, which is something he hasn’t done in a while.

Andy Davis, 18, a recent Perry High School graduate who will be attending Mercer University in the fall, is playing the part of Edmund Prentice, the brother of the main character, the same part he played in “The Hummingbird Room.”

“The personality, the words, the experience of the character from last year I can use when I play him now,” he said.

Although Davis said he wasn’t having to learn a new character, jumping from different eras requires him to know exactly where this character is at those points in his life throughout the show.

“I just like the character in general,” he said. “For me, specifically, he doesn’t have a ton of direction, so I get to make up his personality on my own.”

Davis said he especially enjoys the Teen Theatre Lab because most of his theater experience has been at school, and it is nice to have a different environment where the students can take their collective experiences and bring them together.

“It’s an environmental shift. That’s what’s nice about it,” he said.

“Sundown at Timberlane Drive”

When: 7:30 p.m. June 21-23; 2:30 p.m. June 24; 7:30 p.m. June 28-30.

Where: Perry Players Community Theatre, 909 Main St., Perry

Cost: $10 general admission

More information: 478-987-5354, www.perryplayers.org

This story was originally published June 20, 2018 at 2:48 PM with the headline "The audience has been waiting a year to see the end of this cliffhanger."