Imagine that you are in your typical fantasy story. You beat the bad guy, you got the girl and you are riding off into the sunset. Moreover, what if things didn’t work out so well? That is the basic premise of Into the Woods.
“The premise of this is the happy classic fairy tale, happily ever after, we all know that part,” said theater director Rita McLary. “But then, after intermission, they go well what if it didn’t all work out? What if that marriage didn’t work out or that child had lost his mother. So it interrupts our perceptions of what’s going to happen. In fact, a lot of people think the show is over at intermission, because it’s happily ever after, but it’s not. It’s really going to delve into the stories and say what would happen if everything didn’t go perfectly.”
The actors in the musical not only strive to play their parts well, but to put emotion and character into them to really speak to the audience.
“I try to put as much character into it (rehearsals) as soon as possible,” said senior Reina Jacobson, who plays The Witch in the musical. “I want to start acting right away so I can get used to doing that on stage.”
Senior Shelly Marsh, who has the role of Jack’s Mother, shares a similar sentiment.
“You just need to do it,” said Marsh. “Start trying to learn it, try your best. When you’re actually performing, doing it with expression and emotion, that’s really important. You have to express yourself.”
The environment during rehearsals, described as collaborative and inclusive by senior Kaitlyn Bays, allows for students to put in consistent effort to make each rehearsal feel like the actual show.
“We all try to go all out at every rehearsal,” said Bays, playing Rapunzel. “Practice makes perfect.”
Not only will there be expressive and magical performances aplenty, but the set will be another highlight of the musical.
“It’s gonna look like a full forest on stage. We’re making a lot of trees,” said Jacobson. “Some are twenty feet up to the ceiling and we’ve been making them for months.”
A commonality within all of the students, however, was not only that the constant hard work over the past few months paid off to entertaining the audience as much as possible, but also for everyone involved in making the musical what it is to feel accomplished and proud of what they had worked so hard to achieve.
“The most important thing would be to prepare students so that the audience understands and enjoys the show,” McLary said. “If they communicate that piece of literature in a way that is fantastic, as they usually do, it’s fun for everybody. It’s great for the audience. It’s a great experience for the performers. Everybody enjoys their part, even the people that might have stage fright to begin with. The best part is seeing that pay off with the audience. They give you the applause. Stand up at the ovation and tell you. You know, it just doesn’t seem like a high school show. I like that.”