Each fall the theater department puts on a musical, this year’s musical was “Footloose.” The production ran from Nov. six through the 17.
While the musical generally brings in lots of viewers this year the show had an especially large community turnout. On Saturday 512 tickets were sold, the most the Performing Arts Center has ever sold. Almost all the seats in PAC were filled.
Of the tickets sold many of them were students. Junior Izzy Simms explained the reasons for a higher student turnout.
“I think it definitely helped that a lot of kids just know Footloose,” Simms said.
Although there was plenty of student body at the musical on all the days, Simms also noticed the number of community members who attended the show.
“The parent turnout, the student turnout, just like the community turnout in general, was insane,” Simms said.
There was also a great deal of work that went into making the well received show happen. Specifically, the different dances that came into play. Simms choreographed the dances, “The Girl Gets Around” and “Holding Out for a Hero.” Simms reflects on the struggles of choreographing.
“The choreography is hard because there’s so many different people with so many different skill levels.”
Despite struggles during the rehearsal process the students got the hang of the choreography pretty quickly. Dances were also well received by the audience as they cheered after every dance. Although Simms had rough patches with the choreography she was able to find some easy parts with the music.
“Because Footloose itself, the songs are upbeat and so happy and so full of life I feel like it was so easy to feel the music and get dance moves and work through it pretty easily,” Simms said.
Memorization of lines has been a struggle for people in theater since the dawn of time. Performing a musical comes with immense pressure and an ample amount of responsibility. Line memorization was a big struggle for junior Harrison Guest.
“I struggled a lot with lines, personally, because I had a lot of really long speeches,” Guest said.
Although memorizing lines might seem to be an underlying issue for everyone in the production. Junior Madison Davied faced another struggle.
“Staying in character the whole time. I had to be the opposite of myself,” Davied said.
Although the actors played a big role in the production and performance of the show, there was another challenge Guest highlighted another challenge.
“The department, the set took a very long time to build. There weren’t a lot of pieces, necessarily, but the painting, there’s just a lot of surface area,” Guest said.
A huge amount of effort goes into the sets themselves and the students have set crew Saturdays where they create the sets by hand. The sets on the stage during the musical were all cast, made or handmade by volunteers.
Overall, the cast felt very good about the production. Cast members also received a significant spike in positive feedback from this musical compared to the past couple of years.
Guest emphasized that part of the reason the show ran so smoothly was the cast’s success during tech week and the rehearsals leading up to the show.
“The entire rehearsal process was so smooth, and then all the shows went very smooth as well,” Guest said.
Simms compared this year’s rehearsals to previous years.
“In earlier years, we would go till 9:30, maybe even 10,” Simms said. “So we got home super late.”
As with any performance there are some nerves leading up to opening night especially for those like Guest who are new to the musical.
“On stage was probably the most comfortable I felt because leading up to going on stage, it’s always so nerve-wracking just standing there waiting to walk on. But once you’re on, you’re in your element,” Guest said.
Davied had a similar experience during her performances.
“I feel pretty confident on stage, I see the audience, [and think] yeah, this is where I belong guys. I’m not nervous,” Davied said.
