by Sage Kluge
The New Prairie arts department will be presenting “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”, a comedy musical. New Prairie has been doing musicals every year for quite some time.
“The best part is that there will participation from the audience,” said Kourtney Brennan, who directs the musical each year. The audience participation will be adding the cherry on top of all the hard work the cast has done.
“We only have six weeks to put it all together. Normally we’d have seven or eight weeks, but I got caught up and really busy,” said Brennan. Even though the production was put back a week or two, students are working hard to make it happen.
The musical requires nine to twelve cast members. Even though the musical doesn’t have very many roles, it still takes a lot of effort to make it look and sound good. “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” is very popular because of its Broadway appearance, so of course, it wasn’t a surprise when more than 30 kids were attending auditions.
“Yes, this musical, I had to cut. We wanted to do something bigger, but because of the construction going on I decided to have a smaller cast. If we needed to move it, it would be easier,” said Brennan.
Choosing this musical is all up to Brennan. She gets information on ideas, but when it comes down to it, she has to choose which show to put on the stage.
Every musical that the school has had, the band has played accompanying music for.
Brennan mentioned, “Everyone practices on their own so combining is a bit of a struggle, but everyone adjusts very, very well after a few rehearsals together.” It’s easier practicing with the band since that’s how they would be performing.
Band director Patrick Teykl said “it’s interesting, and challenging knowing the music well enough to get through it and have some fun putting it together for the first time.”
The band students aren’t the only people that hide behind the stage props with a talent. The “crew” is also a big part.
“Mr. Hite helps with a lot, if not all, of our props in building them. We normally wait till later for the process in getting a crew, but there should be around ten to fifteen people a part of it” said Brennan.
Brennan said, “Throughout rehearsing and producing the show, things became extremely stressful and irritating.”
“For me personally, it’s being at rehearsal, getting posters up in time, advertising out, tickets out, costumes figured out, more parents that were a part of the process to balance it out,” said Brennan
In the end, during show day, it’s all worth the sweat, tears and hard work put in to have a good run of the show.
Make sure to attend on November 16,17, and 18. The ticket prices for senior citizens and students are $7 and $10 for adults. The show begins at 6 pm CST on the 16th and 17th, but starts at 2 pm CST on the 18th.