WGHS DRAMA Past Shows Fall 2013-Present: 2024 Fall Musical

The 2024 Fall Musical CABARET was decided the previous Spring, we announced it before we left for the Summer break. Due to the fact that our auditorium was under construction this year, we decided to pick a title that would work well in the Black Box. The story and and history carry a lot of relevance to and we knew it would be interesting to see it against everything that is happening in the world these days; it was a perfect fit.

Special shout out to De Miranda Productions for many of the amazing photos on this blog page.

(Other photos on this page can be credited to Mrs. Dickens)

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Needing photography or videography?

You can find more work at demirandaproductions.com

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Announcing the title in the Spring always makes for better auditions in the Fall. It allows the students who were seriously looking to audition for a part to brush up on the material, get familiar with the characters, and figure out what they wanted to do for the audition.

Poster design by "Bex Nation" (Senior '25- Bex Derr)

This is one of many showcard designs Bex has done for main stage productions over the last several years. This design perfectly captures the essence of the show and the colors are spot on.

AUDITIONS

We held the auditions in the brand new Frick Theater over the course of 3 days.

The hallway monitors and announcements had a slide running

and we used the display outside of the Library

We don't like to waste time, and so the students are asked to share what they have prepared the first day. They sing something from the show. (Cuttings are always posted in the department before the audition). One by one they stand in front of the whole group and sing a portion of a song with a track or with Hank.

Hank Yau was our first student Musical Director on a main stage in decades.

He attended all of the audition days to help with any songs and to help weigh in on the talent.

Then we danced!

The mirrors helped everyone see a bit better.

Some of the testing was just to see who had body awareness and could learn simple movement combos. We also needed to know who could do a kick line and some 1920's style routines.

Everyone did a great job with the dance portion and the energy in the room was a lot of fun to watch

Many of the students also had some circus training, silks and acrobatics or gymnastics in their toolboxes. This allowed us to really consider what we could do with the choreography in the show.

The second day they were asked to dance/move with Mrs. Dickens.

The show has a lot of dance numbers and we needed to know who was able to do the choreography.

Several students at the audition had taken or were taking Mrs Dicken's dance class.

Many students take private dance, are a part of a studio, or take classes with COCA or GCPA

It has been great for our department to have Mrs Dickens and real dance being instructed on campus and in our extracurricular activities. Putting dance to an 8 count changed everything in the last several productions. Having proper choreo pushes the actors to work hard to get the routines clean and polished.

The ACTING Portion

Mira Thies (Stage Manager) helped herd cats on the second day

as we also held some readings of the monologue cuttings in the lobby.

Mr. Schaefer giving a passionate read of a Fraulein Schneider line as he encourages an actor to go further with the character's tactics in the moment

Parker and Riley reading a scene together Riley and Lyd also giving it a run

Mr Schaefer watches each audition with hope

to find the right actor for each role in the show

The third day was some scene with people being considered for the leads, and some final call backs for Sally Bowles. We had about 5 girls who were being considered for Sally. Most of the main parts were able to be cast from what the casting table saw on the first two days.

The Cast, Crew and Band for the Fall 2024 Musical CABARET

(not pictured: Justin Siebe - percussionist for 1st weekend and Casey Drillingas- sailor 1st weekend)

MUSIC REHEARSALS

We started immediately and began learning the music with Hank Yau at the piano. The cast needed to get all of the group and ensemble music learned first and we would fill in any open time with the soloists. We stayed in the Black Box mostly, but we would send people to practice rooms or into the white box if needed.

Hank ended up bringing in his own keyboard, it just felt right

Sophia Monaco (Clarinet) also joined the rehearsals to get a handle on the music

The rest of the band joined us much later in the process.

The music was difficult to learn and we made some small adjustments to help it fit our cast and show

Carl Ellis and Cami Smith were amazing helpers when it came to the the music and getting the cast to sound their best.

The Black box worked great for these rehearsals until the set started to get built and

we moved the work on the stage.

The Kit Kat Girls were a great team, and they really worked hard on all of their numbers!

Each one of them brought something unique and fun to the mix

Kiran Bergfeld was the dance captain

There were only a few moments in the show where everyone sang together and we made sure to get those learned first so that we could use them as warm-ups for future rehearsals

The staging of the show began in the Whitebox but we brought the scene work into the Black Box as soon as we could in order to get a sense of how the movement would work

with the cast on the loft.

THE SET

The Technical Theater Class started by moving the platforms over and re-legging them to make them a taller deck for the scenes and to align the bridges to the loft from the deck. We needed several pathways for the actors to move around the stage in order for the scene changes to move quickly and to get from one location to the next fast.

We built the set into the corner of the Black Box, and utilized the storage loft for additional levels and a way to justify a firepole on the set (cause who doesn't love sliding down a firepole?)

The EMCEE (Carl Ellis) hung out on the platform above the stage for a good portion of the show, commenting on the action and grabbing the attention of the audience at pertinent times.

The Tech Theater Class Fall 2024

They helped construct the playground...it was a really good team!

(This pick was taken on Halloween)

Max, Logan and Riley taking a break during Tech Class.

They were the team that put up the fire pole.

We had all of the pieces we needed to build this set in our department's scenery stock, we just had to pull everything out, see what we needed and reorganize what we didn't need to allow for a backstage area.

Charlotte Snell (Fraulein Schneider) Parker (Cliff) added an American sentiment

in rehearsal right after we got the walls up. to this character's story

There was a lot of traffic backstage. We had to hide actors once they left the stage through either of the two doors. Many times the scenes would end with someone entering or exiting.

The opening scene on the train (Ebba & Parker) Cliff meets the lady in charge

The actors had a lot of fun using the set. Once we had all of the railings secured and the bridges installed, we were able to begin filling the scenes with onlookers. The cast would add a second layer to the scenes being performed, almost like the public leering and judging without taking any action.

The EMCEE was a character that broke all of the rules in the story and all of the rules as a character in a musical. It is a part of the shows "concept" that is not to be like other musicals.

The original creators and producers mentioned quite often in interviews that they tried to achieve a sense of a reality and unreality in the presentation of the story. They audience should be made to feel as though they are an observer and yet at times they are asked to be in the story as patrons of the club. They are in 2024 but also 1930 Berlin.

The musical numbers helped the story transition from a book scene reality, where we meet the characters living in the "real world" and then we shift to the other side. The Kit Kat Girls and the Waiters keep pulling us back into the club (They even get the last word in the show)

The set once we painted it all black. It did go through one more transition

where we added white highlights to all of the trim boards.

PROPS

We had a great props team. Selby Caldwell and Charlotte Jennings worked the backstage area like pros. They handled organizing and doing the hand-offs with actors during the run. There were a ton of things that came through the doors: luggage, typewriters, bottles, glasses...people.

Alby (who came in and lent a hand with some props), Selby and Charlotte working on the phones and waiter trays. Most of the props came from stock or we made them. We only to had to buy the perishables (Eggs, pineapples, oranges, and apples.)

For many of the rehearsals the props were living in the middle of the Black Box

until we moved everything backstage

Properties gives every show several challenges and the students who love arts and crafts get a kick out of this part of theater. The making of specialty props is a skill any theater needs on staff. We're so happy with all of the props that this team put on stage.

We had to put scene breakdowns, prop tables, luggage, and of course,

a whole band had to be housed back there. It got tight.

The Waiters had lists on both sides of the house at two bar tables that helped them track what was next. The show had them moving chairs and tables a lot!

Many of the cast were also involved with moving set pieces and handing off some props.

Myles (Victor), Ebba (Ernst), Cami (Waiter), Cathel (Max), Echo (Waiter),

Matilda (Waiter) and Charlotte and Selby.

They rocked it out!

and there is Riley (waiter) on the far right

THE STAFF

We had an awesome group of people working on the production staff. The management stayed organized and many were doing their jobs for the first time, so we allowed this to be a safe space for learning the flow of a theatrical show. We like to use actual productions to teach production.

The musical element always gives a musical a special kind of focus and drive. The students really stepped it up and learned a lot of the music on their own, but we did have Hank and Cami in the room to step in when we hit a hurdle. It was a relief to know we could fix things when needed.

It just helped overall that we were in the Black Box. It is far easier to communicate with everyone in the room, unlike when we produce bigger shows in our Auditorium, where gets really hard to get everyone's attention easily. The chances that people lose their voice before a show opens goes up. We use mics but we don't usually get them out until we have to. Most can sing over the keyboard in a standard rehearsal.

This was our very first musical in the WG Black Box Theater

Freya (Sound Operator), Mrs Dickens (Choreographer), Mira (Stage Manager), Tony (Light Board Op), Colin (Head Spot), Miss Shelby (Production Assistant)

We had some downtime, and it is a joy to see everyone getting along and having a good time

Selby, Bex and Ange (Box Office Mgr.)

putting spike tape around the platforms for actor safety

Ellen (Kost) and Luca (Schultz) pose while Parker (Cliff) looks over his lines

Once we programmed all of the light cues, got the mics fired up, and added the follow spots, the rehearsals got focused and everyone started to "lock in".
We could feel the show pushing toward opening night.

PR MARKETING

We were so fortunate to have Bex Nation designing our marketing stuff. She created the poster, the announcement slide and we had her pull the title font and we designed the T-shirt to work with all of the show's branding.

Mr. Schaefer and his partner Brian making the show shirts in the Makerspace.

It is a gift from the staff to the students who work on the show.

The hallway slides and the announcements help sell tickets

We had 80 seats a night and we sold all of them except 20 on the first Friday.

By the last weekend we had turned away over 30 people who never got to see the show...

THE BAND

Mr. Cole helped get the band together for us. After looking over the books for the show, he reached out to specific students (seniors) he knew would come in to support the work Hank had already put in and offer some additional support. The band added so much sound to what we had been working with in rehearsals. The band only met a couple of times to play through the show with Hank while we worked scenes and polished up some songs with the tracks we made for rehearsals.

THEN WE SITZPROBE!!!

(a German word to describe the rehearsal

where the cast sings through the songs with the orchestra for the first time)

The band got set up and we brought the cast in to join them after a good warm-up

There were two live mics for the singers

We had the dancers do some of choreo so that we knew we were hitting the tempos right

Mrs. Dicken's was happy to see it working out with the band.

They sounded amazing!!!

Justin Siebe (Drums) is off to the right (he got cut out of the pic)

THEN WE PUT IT ALL TOGETHER!!!

COSTUMES

We were so lucky to have our costume dream duo back to work on a very piece for the show. Ellie Blanton and Spencer Buchanan helped pull the costumes for the cast, did a lot of the alterations, and then shifted gears and began work on the EMCEE jacket. It was a showstopper and Carl loved wearing it onstage.

It had so many gems that at one point there were four people on the floor of the costume room gluing gems onto the jacket just before the show started opening night.

By the 2nd weekend the jacket read Kit Kat "Klub"

THE SHOW

We ran this production for two weekends. Nov 7, 8, 9 and 14, 15, 16. We only had 80 seats to sell and we offered the cast some tickets for family to ensure nobody's grandma didn't get in if they travelled all the way from Texas.

The Dress Rehearsals started that week on Tuesday Night. We used Monday of show week to fix some last minute stuff and add mics. They finally got into full costume and make-up and everything came to life.

MAKE-UP and HAIR

The whole cast when in on the make-up and hair.

QUIET BACKSTAGE!!!

Men had to slick back curls and grease back their hair to get to that 20's look. The ladies went all out with the 20's styles. This is 1930 Berlin and so the styles of the show really highlight the last looks of the 1920s.

Bex Nation took on the task of doing the EMCEE's look and it turned out great!

Carl came to life in the mirror and we knew we hit it just right.

The green room was a busy place, there was a lot of people to get ready and many lists to double check each night to make sure we didn't forget anything.

(Austin and Jalen are in the read shirts - they are the other two spot ops)

The Kit Kat Girls!!!

Jeni, Mirian, Katie, Martha and Kiran...(Where is Mimi?)

Every night Mr. Schaefer would paint several actor's faces..

Mrs Dickens and Miss Shelby were in the dressing room doing the same with the girls

The new Polaroid... Everyone is dressed and made up...now let's do this!

WARM UPS and FIRE'N UP

and then go to places!

SHOW PICS

You say fifty marks, I say one hundred...

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, INTRODUCING THE ONE, THE ONLY...

SALLY BOWLES!!!

and the amazing KIT KAT GIRLS!!!

Happy New Year!!!

You AMERICANS!!!

We're you terrified?

Prairie Oysters then!

Some people have two people...

Tomorrow belongs to me

A pineapple for you!

There is more than one way to make money!

This fine lady is NOT your sister!

Have you ever been married?

ACT II

There is a new problem...

If you could see her...

I Don't Care Much....

If You were a German you would understand these things!

Dedicate your book to me...

Life is a Cabaret old chum...

CURTAIN CALL!!

WE'RE ALL DONE!!!

AWARDS and CELEBRATIONS

The parents set out a nice spread of snack and treats for everyone and we continued our tradition of acknowledging everyone who worked on the show, announcing the MVTs (Selby & Charlotte- our props dream duo), and pass the pig...