FHS’s theater department spring musical for 2024 is “The Wizard of Oz.” The on stage adaptation is based on the movie directed by Victor Flemming that originally came out August 25, 1939. Opening night for the musical was Friday, April 12th.
FHS’s theater and English teacher, Cathleen Beachboard, is one of the administrators for the show. Usually Beachboard does straight plays, which are plays that only use spoken dialogue, but she’s excited to be working with a musical. Another unique aspect about this musical compared to others she’s done is the amount of technical work that goes into it. “The Wizard of Oz” has multiple special effects that can be difficult to recreate. For example, the character Glinda the Good Witch has to fly, and the Evil Witch has a stage effect where she disappears by engulfing herself in flames. These kinds of special effects require lots of teamwork to achieve. “There’s gonna be a lot of students from the vocational, like CTech, helping out. We have the electrical students who are going to be doing some electrical work,” says Beachboard.
Being a freshman in a serious theater department like FHS’s can be intimidating, especially if you have an important role. Niko Reuetzl, a freshman in the play, has one of the bigger roles in the play. He is playing one of the main characters, the Scarecrow. Having such a demanding role calls for some stress before opening night. To handle this, lots of people that are in theater do little things to help calm themselves down before opening night. Reuetzl says, “I talk to myself, I tell myself, ‘Remember the practice and how well we’ve been doing, and just know whatever happens we put on a show.’” For him, doing that before a show helps calm any nerves.
Even with a less demanding role, freshman Rayne Dodson still gets nervous before going on stage. “Before opening night, get a lot of sleep and just go over what you’re not sure you know,” advises Dodson. Although she’s not in a role of a main character, she has many roles in the ensemble that help make the musical. She plays a tree, a crow, a farmer and a background dancer.
Eden Wagner is a sophomore at FHS. She has the lead role in the play as Dorothy. Dorothy is an extremely demanding role, and this is also Wagner’s first time being a lead. She’s done other plays in the past, but never a role with so many lines. Like most people, Wagner gets stage fright before the play, but she deals with it a little differently than other people. “I just remember that I’m not being myself, I’m being someone else that does not have stage fright, so that helps a lot.”
