The upcoming Potosi High School musical Willy Wonka is fast approaching us. You can come out and see the show Saturday, November 7th at 7:00 pm, or Sunday, November 8th at 2:00 pm. The cast members are counting down the days until they are able to show off their hard work and present the musical to the public in the Keith Carlton Livens Auditorium. With all the excitement building up, I got a chance to talk to Mr. Ray about this year’s musical.
Mr. Ray explained that at the end of last school year, an informational meeting was held to see how many students would possibly be interested in being in the musical for the upcoming school year. Once the meeting was held, Mr. Ray had a good idea of how many cast members he would have. It was then time to start searching online to find the perfect musical that would work best for the size of the group. The first choice was Annie, but then a group of students suggested doing Wonka. Mr. Ray reviewed the students' second choice and determined there were enough students to fill all of the roles, and it was finalized.
Once the musical was decided the next step was to purchase the rights, usually the most expensive element of producing a show. The cost for the rights to this musical was $1500. The next step was to make a budget. When structuring the budget, key factors to consider were how much it would cost to pay the musicians, purchase scripts, acquire needed costumes, design set pieces, and purchase paint. Costumes are the least expensive due to years of donated costumes that were from members of the community or made for past shows. Flats used for the set design are also not an expense that they have to worry about because old set pieces can usually be reused and repainted every year.
Since the beginning of October, the cast has spent countless hours practicing their lines to eliminate mistakes, but we all know mistakes do happen at times. I asked Mr. Ray his advice to cast members to help them out if a mistake is made. He said his encouraging words to students are to “crash and burn” in rehearsal. That is where mistakes can happen and they can work on them so they do not happen during the live performances. Mr. Ray always has a script in hand that he follows, so if he sees someone struggling, he can say a key word to help them along and keep the lines flowing. He also tells each cast member to always be willing to help out another scholar if they are struggling. “The show must go on” as they say; mistakes do happen, so you just have to fill in and keep things rolling.
With the musical getting closer, Mr. Ray talked about how he handles any last minute changes to the stage or blocking during tech week. He explained that, hopefully by that week, everyone knows what they have to do getting on and off the stage. Tech week is the final rehearsal week, which includes dress rehearsals, and notes are taken closely to identify any areas that need to be corrected before the live performances. His main concern among his cast is sickness that might make an actor not able to perform. He always has a backup, or understudy, for each of his main characters.
Wrapping up my conversation with Mr. Ray, he talked about the two exciting scenes that he is still working on. One is to figure out how to make cast members float in the scene where Charlie and his grandfather take a sip of the soda.They are also still working on the ending where the characters are flying in the air in an elevator. Work is still in progress for these two scenes; if you want to see how they pull it off, you should attend the live performances to see the final results.