Readthrough, Saturday rehearsals, sitzprobe, marathon, tech-week. All of these tasks for WO theater students have one thing in common…

Being difficult.

Some students struggle to remember lines, dance correctly, complete a quick change in 45 seconds or less, and more. 

But, some moments in the show can be more challenging than one might think. 

Director, Joe Huber said, ¨Rock Island – The show’s opening number is a difficult one because it is a group of traveling salesmen on a train doing a “rap” to no music. 

They keep their rhythm by creating the sounds of the train.  It is eight different actors trading off rap lines to the rhythm of a train.  The cast’s boys are amazing and doing great with this song.  People are going to be impressed.  It is not easy at all, but the payoff is great!  It’s a great opening number.¨

Props coordinator, Donald Curry said, “The most difficult part of this production is keeping track of all the books. In Marian The Librarian number alone there are over 40 books handled by 31 actors. 

It is very challenging to track each book’s starting and ending position and reset each book after the number is over. But the payoff will be worth the challenge. It is a fun and visually interesting dance number filled with waltzing, sneaking, and a bookcase ballet. 

I can’t wait for the audience to witness the incredible choreographed chaos that is Marian The Librarian.”

Publicity Coordinator, Abby Guerrin said, “The most challenging part of trying to publicize the show is that we live in a time where everyone gets their information from such a huge variety of sources.  Just a couple of decades ago, you could post an article in the Holland Sentinel, and it reached a huge population – but it’s not like that anymore. Getting the word out and getting the community excited requires a lot of creativity. I have to come up with unique content to share across multiple social media platforms, local news outlets, and radio stations, and then pray that they get seen, heard, liked, and shared.¨

Costume Designer Darlene Veenstra said, “finding and staying in period (1912) and dressing actors in a way that they look like adults, teens, and children. 

None of our modern clothes look anything like they did over 100 years ago, so most everything had to be built or majorly altered to look like the period.  I think that sets our shows apart from others because we work hard with hair, makeup, and costumes to set the look of the time the script is set in.”

Jr. Andrew McMichael said, ¨For me, when I am running the sound systems for the show the most difficult part is having the familiarity with the show to know when things are happening before they happen. As the soundboard operator, I am responsible for all of the mics and making sure that they all sound good, and are in working order and then turning them on and off as people enter and exit the stage, because of how often this happens, especially with how many large numbers there are in musicals, I have to be very familiar with and very focused on the show so that everyone can be heard well when they need to be and not heard when they don’t. 

Sr. Caedmon Kephart said, “There are a few challenging moments in The Music Man for me. For one, I’m ‘The Music Man,’ which entails a lot of pressure – many people expect me to put on a good show! Especially for the first show in the new PAC. 

However, the single most difficult moment for me was the song ‘Ya Got Trouble.’ There are so many words – and I’m moving around a lot which makes it difficult to get them all out and keep my breath steady. That is the most challenging part.¨

Frosh. Elyse Durey said, ¨I would say probably the Shipoopi dance, it’s the dance we’ve learned most recently so we haven’t worked it as much which automatically makes it harder. It’s also really long which makes it harder to keep up stamina for the whole dance. 

But the hardest part so far would be singing and dancing at the same time in that number, Not only are we moving every muscle in our bodies for a long time but we are also having to sing which makes it incredibly hard to breathe.¨

Sr. Jose Estupinan said: ¨I believe the most challenging part is rehearsing with people being gone. Almost all last week one of the tenors was out and our choral director Ms. Stier had to fill in for their part. 

The quartet is full of so many different harmonies so we need the whole group together for it to sound good and having even just one person gone makes a big difference.¨

 Among all of these difficult tasks, there is an incredible amount of joy and fun that comes from making a show for the West Ottawa community, Everyone involved with the show has put the majority of their time into perfecting their craft in singing, dancing, and acting. 

The cast/crew/orchestra pit is very excited to present the show to the audience in the new PAC on Nov. 1,2,8,9 at 7:30 pm and Nov. 3 at 2:30 pm

Visit the WO Theater Box Office on Facebook to learn more about the show and purchase tickets. 

Come see ¨The Music Man.¨