The Most Amazing Musical
Freshmen shine in roles as the March sisters in Little Women
Senior Julia Wolz plays Jo March in Little Women. In this scene of Act II, Jo writes a letter to junior Cameron Jones’ character Professor Bhaer.
Liberty’s theater program put on its first musical, Little Women, on March 15, 16 and 17. The cast and crew had been working on the show for over two months and their greatest expectations were realized opening night.
“[My favorite part of rehearsals was] honestly just seeing the progression from Day 1 to opening night,” senior Austyn Kloth said. Kloth was a member of the chorus and played the knight in the second act. He has been in every production at Liberty as well as seniors Abby Hankins, Julia Wolz, Alyssa Fay, Juhaina Aarda and Abby Falgout.
Wolz was the lead of the musical as Jo March, the second oldest March sister who wanted to be a writer.
“My favorite part of being Jo was being able to play a character I kinda look up to in a way. She did things differently than I would have normally and I really admired that,” Wolz said.
Senior Julia Wolz raises her play sword in the song “Our Finest Dreams” as Jo March.
The students that played the three other March sisters, Meg, Beth and Amy, and the student that played the mother, Marmee, were all played by freshmen: Emily Grant (Meg), Michelle Yoder (Beth), Brooke Huffman (Amy) and Lola Cadice (Marmee).
“I think my favorite part of any musical is just spending time with so many other amazing people and different types of people too because it’s not just performers, it’s the deck crew and people doing lights,” Yoder said.
This show was very bittersweet for the seniors of the show because not only was it the first musical, but it was their last show at Liberty.
“I was all sad on the final show night because it was the first and last musical for seniors,” Hankins said.
Though the cast of the show gets a lot of praise, a lot of work goes on backstage. The stage left stage manager was senior Ellie McCrary during the show and the stage right stage manager was senior Juhaina Aarda. The third stage manager, senior Sara Merz, was working up in the soundbooth during the show. They all worked to make sure the show went smoothly.
“It doesn’t feel like there was much of a division between the grade levels,” Merz said. “We were all just friends and we were like one big family.”
Sophomore Lindsay Grant, senior Sara Merz, and sophomore Maddie Haynes work in the soundbooth to run the lights and sound.
Behind the stage managers is their deck crew. There was a stage left and a stage right deck crew. Something special about the stage right deck crew was that a member of the chorus decided to help with deck when she wasn’t on stage. Freshman Alyssa Place was in the chorus as well as being on the deck crew.
“It was fun being backstage with the deck crew and getting to watch the show,” Place said. Place liked getting to gain new experiences from both aspects of theater.
A joke from the show was the title of a song from the second act, “The Most Amazing Thing”. The song was sung by Huffman and Wesley Nichols (10) as Amy and Laurie.
“It was the most amazing pun in the musical,” Huffman said.