For the first time since 2001, Permian High School is staging a musical. This year, it’s Chicago — Teen Edition.
Chicago — Teen Edition will be staged at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 9 and 10 and 2:30 p.m. Nov. 11 at the Permian High School Auditorium.
Admission is $10 for ECISD staff and students and $15 for general admission.
Director Micaela Grenier said the production includes 105 students from cast members to technical crew. They have about 30 core cast members, 60 dancers from the different dance classes and about 15 for crew.
They started off with more than 130, but lost some along the way.
The technical director is Rey Montoya.
“We needed to do something fantastic for our first big show and we needed to do something that we knew the community would be interested in, something that had some draw. … We partnered with the dance department on this show and so we wanted to do something that would be really great for them as well to show off how strong they are and how great their classes are. We chose Chicago because it ticks all of those boxes,” Grenier said.
To find out exactly how long it had been since PHS had produced a musical, Grenier looked through the yearbooks and found it was Little Shop of Horrors.
“And funny enough, when they did that show it had been more than 20 years” since they did the musical before that, she said.
Hopefully, this will be the start of having annual musicals.
“It’s got all of the good elements of theater. It’s over the top. There’s lots of sparkle. There’s great music. There’s choreography. It’s all of the exciting things that everybody thinks about when they think about theater,” Grenier said.
With so many cast members, she said they were a little worried at first because it had been so long since they had produced a play like this. They were shocked when they had more than 70 students sign up to try out just to be on stage.
“That didn’t count our technical crew or the dance classes,” Grenier said.
She thought she could do the show with 18 people, but she wanted more — and she got it.
“It wasn’t hard the way I thought it was going to be. It ended up being the kids were excited about it, which was great,” Grenier said.
The production is looking good.
“We’re in pretty good shape. We’ve got a long way to go in the next week-ish, but it’s coming together really fast. All of our students are hard at work on the costumes and the props. As you can see as they all come run and ask questions about what they can be working on. We’ve got students running the sound; we’ve got students running the lighting. They do everything. We put the pieces together, we teach them how to do it, and then they take off. So we’re a little stressed this close, but it’s coming together really well and we think that it’s going to be something fantastic,” Grenier said.
This is Grenier’s second year at Permian and the theater program has seen a steady increase in every way since she arrived.
“We’ve been raising the bar on the types of shows we’re doing, on the quality of those shows, on how many students we have involved, on our audience numbers. We just finished a run in September of The Outsiders. We did four shows, and we sold out every single performance, which was great … We just opened ticket sales last Friday, and we’ve already sold 200 tickets, so it’s growing. We are growing and the quality of the shows has increased dramatically,” Grenier said.
The student participation and the students’ grades are up because they want to be involved.
“We are raising the bar and they are meeting our expectations and they’re able to do things like lead stretches and take care of things … It’s been really exciting to watch them grow and to see how far the program has come and hopefully how far it can continue to go,” Grenier added.
The auditorium has 1,200 seats, but she said there are many that you can’t sit in.
“We’re hoping to seat 200 at each performance,” Grenier said.
She noted that when people hear Chicago and teenagers, they may not think the two go together.
“So it is really important that we clarify for licensing reasons and other things this is Chicago — Teen Edition. They’ve taken out a lot of the more questionable content in the show to make it more appropriate for teenagers. But it’s still the same overall story. … There are going to be some familiar things about it because it’s the same story, but it’s also been made more appropriate for high school students,” Grenier said.
She added that the students have worked really hard on the production.
“We can’t wait for this community to see what they’ve been putting all of their free time into for the last six, seven, eight weeks. It’s going to be a really great show and we’re really proud of them,” Grenier said.
She added that the students are pulling together to be part of something bigger than themselves.
“This is their activity that they do … This is their choir, their band … But we also have a great number of kids that this is the first time that they’re joining us and this is the first time any of us are doing this. We’ve got some kids that have done stuff in the community … but it’s a first for everyone. We’ve got some kids that are brand new and they seem to really love it and hopefully they’re going to stick around for the next one,” Grenier said.
Emilie Vanderford, a junior, plays Mona. She has performed in plays in the community.
This being the first musical in more than 20 years, she wasn’t going to miss it.
“I’ve been in the company since I was a freshman because theater has always been my thing. … I do every play pretty much whenever I can,” Vanderford said.
She added that the production is coming together.
“It’s a process. … The more rehearsals we have, they get better every time,” Vanderford said.
This is the largest production she has been a part of at Permian.
“I love it. I’m really enjoying it” she added.
Viviana Barrera, a freshman, is the head of props.
Since third grade, she was involved in art, but this year she didn’t get one because she had to take other classes to graduate.
Instead, Barrera decided to get into theater and work with props.
“I thought (it) was very fun. I really like this,” she said.
Barrera added that she didn’t mind the extra hours and has met students she wouldn’t have known normally.
“I love them all. They’re very nice,” she said.
Barrera said she’s feeling good about the production. Organizing the props has been fun, but hard work.
“I think it’s very (good) for me to help me gain more responsibility,” Barrera said.
She added that the production is going to be amazing.
“I think a lot of people are going to enjoy it,” Barrera said.
