The spring musical, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” has already been a challenging yet rewarding experience for the theater community.
Stage manager, Mathew Krelitz ’20, reveals the difficulty of putting on the musical: “[..] I would say there are more moving parts just in that they [characters] are singing and dancing.” Because of this, more numbers need blocking, which adds another challenge.
Actress, Maya Hardy ’21, explains, “One of the things that is most difficult is probably adding singing and dancing at the same time, especially [in] one of our numbers called pandemonium [..] And it is a crazy dance number and the singing has all of these different aspects where you have to remember that along with the dance. So putting that together can be difficult parts of creating a musical.”
However, the long nights and difficult numbers have allowed the theater community to form a strong bond. Hardy explains how her experience acting in the musical at Blake differs from that of her old school: “I am excited because, for me, the past two years have been the same group of people. With those people, I obviously made some great friendships and connections, but I am excited to be able to experience that with another group of people.”
Similarly, Tommy Pan ’21 is excited to become closer to his fellow castmates. He says, “I wanted to get that experience. I just really like the theater community and I would just love to be a part of it.
Although musicals can be challenging to put on, the bonds formed and friendships made in the process make the long nights worth it.
