From March 24 to 26, the choir, drama, stagecraft and band departments came together to put on Meredith Wilson’s “The Music Man.” The musical revolves in River City where traveling con man Harold Hill (played by senior Josiah Reyes) convinces the locals into starting a band by purchasing instruments and uniforms from him and plans to take off once he receives the money. That all changes when he begins to fall for librarian Marian Paroo (played by seniors Kinley De Leon and Linsey Christian) who suspects that Hill is up to something but doesn’t say anything as her younger brother Winthrop Paroo (played by third-grader Will Poarch) becomes very excited to be in the towns band. Hill however faces a tough decision about leaving the town as he starts to develop feelings for Marian.
“This show is one of my favorites and I knew we had the singers and actors for this one,” theater director Megan Braden said. “I presented the musical to the production team at the beginning of the school year and we all agreed this was the right show for us this year.”
While the show looked like it was running without any problems, the musical had to be delayed due to COVID and the many snow days that got in the way.
“It definitely had its fair share of road bumps, to say the least,” De Leon said. “But fortunately, this year’s cast were some of the most hard-working people I have had the pleasure to work with so we were able to get everything right.”
While it may have looked like just the theater and choir departments were shown in the musical, a lot of the credit needs to go to the stagecraft and band. Without them, the musical simply wouldn’t have run as well as it did with the transitions between scenes, lighting, even the music that was being played all were factors that they played big roles in.
“I absolutely loved helping with the musical this year,” junior Levi Hine said. “Just the entire experience from learning the music to performing it with such great performers was amazing.”
The musical was deemed a success as many of the students felt proud of their work and the directors felt like their expectations for what they were planning on the project were exceeded by the performances of everyone involved.
“All of the students did a great job on this project,” Braden said. “We knew going into this that some of the kids were inexperienced due to COVID but we knew that with them being the hard workers that they were during production, we knew that they would be able to deliver and produce a great musical.”