Hellgate added a new musical theater class this year, replacing the typical Theater 3/4 class for juniors and seniors. Taught by both the theater teacher, Laramie Dean, and the choir teacher, Ellen McKenzie, the class aims to teach students the fundamental skills of putting a musical production together.
The class is available for students who have taken or are currently enrolled in Theater 2. The interest for Musical Theater is so high that over 40 students are enrolled in the class. Hellgate has had strong theater and choir programs for years now, and Dean and McKenzie are used to working together, bringing recent productions like Mean Girls and Hadestown to life.
The theater program alternates doing a musical production in the spring every year, and this class takes place in a year without one, setting up many younger students for success when it comes time to put together a musical next year.
McKenzie thinks that this class will help facilitate what she calls “the merge,” where students cross over from choir to theater when the school puts on a spring musical. McKenzie said that having a full year dedicated to students learning the technicalities of musical theater will cause them to have “a better understanding of the big picture of a musical and better skills.”
McKenzie sees this clearly in students who are being exposed to the music aspect of the class for the first time. There are many specific techniques that new students have to learn when improving vocally. However, their commitment to theater has kept many students in the program despite a large shift in the class that can cause a lot of worry.
“I can tell, they’re nervous, but I have assured them that they’ll learn all the technique that you need to be able to produce a good sound and hopefully that makes them realize this shouldn’t be something they avoid in the future,” McKenzie said.
Senior Myla Spoon has been in the productions of both Mean Girls and Hadestown, but due to her full schedule last year, wasn’t able to participate in choir. Her difficulty in scheduling isn’t unique; many students find committing two out of their seven classes to choir and theater, as well as fitting in their academics. Spoon said that this is a great opportunity to combine those two things to hopefully avoid scheduling concerns like she had last year.
“I missed singing with the group and musical theater is awesome because it combines my two favorite things,” said Spoon, who also noted that musical theater gives her the opportunity to think about all the specific moving parts of a musical production,specifically why songs are placed where they are and how they help facilitate the story.
Senior Olive Kreta is one of the presidents of the Thespian Board, a group of student leaders for the theater program, and she played Hermes in Hadestown last year. She said she felt as though that role really helped her step outside of her comfort zone and gain a lot of new skills and experience. While Kreta has participated in many Hellgate shows such as Mean Girls, Dracula, and Alice in Wonderland, playing Hermes was the first time she had a lead role, and it was a vocally and emotionally demanding one.
“I know there’s a lot of people that don’t really like singing, and are more drawn to straight plays,” Kreta said. Like McKenzie, she has also noticed that students who haven’t done musicals before are still taking the class to stay involved in the theater program.
As a senior, Kreta won’t have the opportunity to do another musical at Hellgate, so she said she appreciates getting to still explore the art form, which is particularly helpful as she plans to study musical theater in college next year. She said she loves seeing how this class has drawn more people into theater as she puts her final mark on Hellgate’s theater program. While participating in Our Town at Hellgate this fall, she has enjoyed getting to improve in musical theater skills, such as dance, that will equip her for her future.
“There used to be less students involved in the theater and this class gives a nice balance of being able to still do musical theater in a year without a spring musical,” Kreta said.
McKenzie said that the class has been an idea that she and Dean have thought about for a while, and that they finally decided to give it a go this year after having a rewarding experience with Hadestown last spring. The regular Advanced Theater class will take place next year, which Kreta noted as being exciting because it gives students the opportunity to take two different classes, instead of the standard two years of Advanced Theater.
Kreta said she hopes that the class will make many students in upcoming years enjoy musical theater as much as she has. “Theater has really made me more confident in myself,” she said. “I hope that a lot of other people can experience that too.”
