By: Cecilia Schutt
Photo courtesy of Carys Brown
The Willow School High School put on a successful production of the musical Hadestown this past October, despite setbacks from Hurricane Francine.
Hadestown is a musical that has been performed on Broadway that tells the story of two lovers, Orpheus and Eurydice, and their journey to the underworld. It is a show that is more than two hours long and is almost completely made up of only songs, with very little dialogue.
“Hadestown was the first musical I’ve ever done that only used songs to progress the story along. This meant that there were many more vocal and choreography rehearsals than other shows. It really pushed my abilities to act through song because that was all I could do. There were no chances to act through spoken dialogue, only sung.” said senior Kelly Laines, who played Orpheus.
Putting on a show like this took a lot of time and effort months in advance. The first rehearsal was on August 27th, and the show opened on October 16th.
“The total rehearsal process was 50 days, with 30 rehearsals in total,” said Laines.
In order to be ready in time, actors, crew members, and teachers got right to work at the start of the school year.
But then, on Wednesday September 11th, right in the middle of the rehearsal process, Hurricane Francine hit Louisiana. But the show must go on, even when there’s a hurricane.
“We lost a week of rehearsals, which, since we only had a little over a month to get the show ready, really hurt us. But we persevered. The cast was able to come together and meet in Audubon park while school was still out and get some self-guided rehearsal in, which was really cool to see,” said senior Henry Perrine, who played Hades.
Working with the space available in the Lions’ Gate Theatre was also a challenge, for cast and crew alike.
“It was a much smaller space than most of the productions I’ve done in the past, so it was much more cramped, and you had to kind of get used to that.” said freshman James Andrews, a member of the ensemble and the understudy for Hades. The Willow School frequently puts on productions at Delgado and Le Petit theatre, which have larger areas to work with than the Lions’ Gate Theatre.
“Usually we’ve got a big, actual stage and we had all of the resources and everything we needed, but the space was just so small and unique, so it was difficult to work around some of those issues,” said junior Maddy Kuemmel, assistant lighting designer.
Even though they faced challenges such as time restraints and natural disasters, students kept up their morale.
“While the days were long and hard, I never dreaded going to rehearsals,” said junior Ruby Murphey, one of the head stage managers. “I had a conversation with another crew member during exam week, and I just remember being so sick and also very tired, but we just both just looked at each other and were like, ‘I can’t wait for rehearsal.’ It truly was an amazing experience, and I love the bond I formed with everyone.”
The friendships forged between those working on Hadestown was many people’s favorite part of putting on the show.
“Because we spent so much time with each other, we ended up forming a really tight bond. They really helped me look forward to doing stuff,” said sophomore Ariana Uschold, who played one of the three Fates.
In the end, the hard work of all of those involved in putting on the show paid off, with the musical selling out.
“I thought that Hadestown was a really good production both from the cast and crew.” said Lilah Matthews, a sophomore who went to see the show. “The entire cast did a really great job with telling the story and getting the meaning of the show portrayed. The set was also really well done and was really cool to look at while the show was going on.”
