Rehearsals and tech work are underway for the last show of the season, “Arsenic and Old Lace,” which will open on April 28 in the Black Box Theatre.

“Arsenic and Old Lace” is a play about two little old ladies who kill little old men as an act of charity. “They think they’re doing them a service,” Jeremy Riggs, director, said. It goes well for them until their nephew finds out and goes crazy.

Since the comedy is a farce, “it takes a lot of time to work individual moments to ensure that it’s funny,” Riggs said.

However, the cast is given a lot of freedom to try new things with comedy.

Rehearsals are apparently running really smoothly, but “because the cast is so fantastic, we sometimes get off task by going back to try new things,” Riggs said.

Directing teenagers to play old people may seem like an impossible task, but Riggs takes a unique approach to it. “I tell them to think old but try to play it like they’re not old,” he said. He compared this strategy to a similar one where if an actor tries not to cry or to hide his sadness, the tears are more likely to happen naturally.

“There’s a certain charm in it,” Riggs said, referring to this style of acting.

Though the play may be dated, Riggs chose it for a multitude of reasons. “It’s one of my favorite plays,” he said.

He believes that comedy is timeless. “Even though it was written 90 years ago probably, it still has the ability to reach us all.”

Riggs said, “If you put characters into odd situations, and watch them react to it, we can relate to that.”

Another reason this particular play was chosen is that it has tiebacks to Kansas. The iconic living room set was actually based on the playwright’s own living room in his house in Kansas while he was teaching at Bethel College.

“It’s hard to build an entire house in the black box,” Riggs said, but the crew has gotten a lot accomplished in a short amount of time.

Riggs isn’t sure the playwright had any message or real meaning behind the play, other than wanting to tell a humorous story.

However, the cast has found their own underlying theme in the play, which is that every character seems to have some sort of mental deficiency.

According to Riggs, the cast helps bring the twisted, fast-paced comedy to life. “The bottom line is, who doesn’t want to see a comedy about murder?” he said.