Despite the “agony” of sickness and other challenges, this year’s Upper School musical “Into the Woods” received several standing ovations.
“Into the Woods” featured Ellis Brown as the Baker, Graysen Pendry as the Baker’s wife, Sejal Ahuja as Cinderella, Anaïs Morris as Little Red Riding Hood, and Avital “Avi” Grossman as Jack. The production ran March 12 through March 15.
This year’s cast and crew were hard at work memorizing lines, rehearsing, and working on the set since before winter break. In December, cast members received their scripts for an official read through, which allowed the cast to spend time memorizing lines over the break. Rehearsal then began the first week of January. In the beginning, rehearsals lasted from 3:45 until 5:30 or 6 in the evening. However, rehearsal length varied for different cast members, meaning that some cast members would arrive later or leave early, depending on the agenda for the day.
On each day of rehearsal, time slots were assigned to each member of the cast to show up and rehearse singing, dancing, or staging, depending on their roles and scenes. In a single day, there were as little as four to as many as eight time slots for the cast to work on different aspects of the show.
As the performance dates came closer, the cast was at school until as late as 9 p.m., running through dress rehearsals, tech rehearsals, perfecting scenes, and making last minute changes.
Stage crew also started attending rehearsals about a week before the shows. Before that, the two members of stage crew, sophomores Anna Chandler and Tegan Druger, worked on the sets, “including building, painting, paper mache, and prop making,” Chandler said. There were several challenges during rehearsals. The crew faced challenges such as “missing props, figuring out cues, and a lot of trial and error when it came to some set pieces,” Chandler said.
Challenges also included an illness that went around, affecting several members of the cast. During the Morning Ex that teased the production, there was also “trouble with the mics,” Chandler said. “Sometimes they wouldn’t work properly, and it led to scenes where the audience couldn’t hear people properly.”
Another challenge that the cast faced was meeting the February 24 memorization deadline. The day after February break, “there was still a decent bit of stuff that we didn’t know [like] lines, staging, and dances,” Brown said.
Despite the challenges that the members of the musical faced, they “eventually pulled it together and put on a great show…after lots of hard work and recovery,” Brown said.
The cast and crew of the musical also shared some of their favorite memories.
“During ‘Agony,’ everyone backstage got into a large circle and would lip sync along dramatically,” Chandler said. “It probably looked ridiculous, but it was just a fun thing we did.”
Brown also noted that despite his role in the musical as the Baker, he stepped in as Rapunzel’s Prince one day during rehearsal when Owen Zeller was out sick. His favorite memory was singing “Agony” as Rapunzel’s Prince with Cinderella’s Prince played by Evan O’Connor.
“It was so much fun to sing with Evan,” Brown said. “I had always secretly wanted to be one of the princes, so this was a cool way to try it out.”
Leading up to opening night, a spirit week for the musical was introduced by the Performing Arts Committee in order to spark interest and excitement around the show. Each day of spirit week was a different color of the items that the Baker needed to collect and give to the Witch in order for the Baker’s Wife to give birth to a healthy child. The themes included wearing the colors that corresponded with “A cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn, a slipper as pure as gold”, Monday through Thursday, and dressing as a favorite musical or musical character on Friday.
Opening night reflected all of the hard work the cast and crew put in during rehearsals and during their own free time. “I thought everything turned out great,” Chandler said. “I loved the way that the actors spun their characters, and I thought everyone did such an amazing job.”
“We are all so extremely proud of the show we put on. In our eyes it was fantastic,” Brown said. “It might have been even better for us because we knew where we started and how much effort we all put in to make the show as good as it was, and also because we know how hard this show is to pull off and, in the grand scheme of things, how little time we had.”
