The Good Knight Theatre Company is in full swing for the production of the spring musical, Mean Girls. The production will incorporate aspects of other Hellgate arts, including choir, band, and student choreographers.
Hellgate theater rotates between a fall play and a spring musical, and this spring the popular choice of Mean Girls has brought in new elements of production.
For many cast members, this is one of their first musicals, “we only do a musical every other year, so this is only our second time doing a musical,” said Isabella Schmidt, a cast member. The process for musicals is much more involved than plays and involves 12 to 13 weeks of rehearsals. “It’s a lot more work,” said Schmidt.
“What we do that’s different than straight plays is we start with music rehearsals, then we add blocking, then we add choreo and then band and orchestra,” said Schmidt. Rehearsals have already begun for the cast and the other elements of the play such as choreography and music are coming in within the next few weeks. Once choreography becomes incorporated it is going to, “make blocking a lot more difficult,” said Schmidt.
Senior Evie Wright is a student choreographer, a new role implemented into the production process. “I’m choreographing it with Annie Smith and Gabby Morelli, so we have got together two times outside of school, meeting at MCT and working through the songs. We organized it so each of us has a song requirement to choreograph and then when we come together we work through it,” said Wright.
This particular change to the typical process has stretched students to go deeper into roles which they are more interested in and getting more students involved in the behind the scenes. “It’s been different because I am not in the show, so we will see how the rehearsal process goes,” said Wright. Choreography rehearsals will begin on the first Saturday of February, adding all of the components of the production together.
“My favorite part so far has just been coming up with the choreo and mainly solidifying it. I’m excited to see how it will look once we are actually working with the cast in terms of the formations,” said Wright.
This is the first time that the current cast of students have had a student choreographer and other elements of production led by students. “The cast feels a lot more inclusive than other casts,” said Schmidt. “I feel like there’s a lot more student involvement”.
The production involves several musical numbers, a highlight for much of the cast. Max Reynolds, another cast member, said “watching it all come together” was a main highlight, along with singing. “Singing and listening to the leads,” Schmidt said, was a major highlight of the rehearsal process so far. Reynolds highlighted how watching the different Hellgate arts come together was something unique and exciting about the process. “It involves a bunch of different art programs,” said Reynolds.
Mean Girls the Musical will debut later this spring on April 3-6, 2024.
