By Blair Donald
Round Table editor
Middletown High School’s spring musicals are a source of excitement for many students who try out, singing and dancing in the hopes of getting a part to perform onstage.
Though most students became ensemble members rather than named characters, it was basically guaranteed that if a student auditioned, he or she would get a part.
This year, however, out of the more the 60 students who tried out only 45 got a part, along with only 12 members in the ensemble. The smaller cast is a change from last year’s musical “Grease”, in which every student who tried out got a part.
Said MHS English teacher Marcia Nicklas, “We pushed [the number of people in the cast] much beyond what the script calls for”, also saying that the script did not call for very many people, that the set was so large it would take up most of the room on the stage, and that there were no large numbers that called for lots of extras.
“Unfortunately students seem to have compared this to “Grease”, thinking that if you auditioned you automatically got a part,” she added.
Some students who try out for musicals do it solely to have something to do. If a student doesn’t have a sport or an instrument that he or she plays, school drama is usually an activity to fall back on. Making the spring show so hard to get a part in may discourage students from trying out at all.
High school plays are not Broadway shows, no matter how much is may seem like it to those involved. Is it truly necessary to make the show’s cast so elite that many do not get parts, even in the ensemble? Most of the tickets purchased are the friends and families of the students in the show, if there is a smaller cast chances are that there will be a smaller audience, and fewer funds will be raised for the drama department.
The argument may be that the show does not require all the people who tried out, but in a high school that doesn’t seem logical. Shows done in high school are meant to be fun for the participants, and the play that is picked to perform should have a need for a large cast so that at least those who audition can be in the musical, at least in the ensemble.
The saying goes, “There are no small parts, only small actors.” For high school shows, even a small part means that another student can be onstage and have a time performing, rather than going home empty-handed.
