It takes a village

To paraphrase Actress Keala Settle, who has performed on Broadway but is probably most well-known as the Bearded Lady Lettie Lutz in “The Greatest Showman” with Hugh Jackman, it takes a village to put a show on.

She was talking about Broadway specifically, but that doesn’t make it any less true about high school theater.

No matter how many people are on the cast and the crew, a production relies on everybody working hard to build the story, the set and the musical arrangements.

The students who were on the cast and the crew in the 13 musicals performed in the Valley this spring will most likely find that to be true.

Midd-West High School’s director, Adam Dietz, had a cast and crew of 18 students for the school’s production of “Godspell.” When I was asking him questions after the show, we spoke about the difficulties of having a smaller cast.

“I’ve always told my students that every part, despite the number of lines, is important to the story and vitality of the show,” he said.

The same week his students did “Godspell,” Line Mountain Middle/ High School was putting on a production of “The Sound of Music” with close to triple the amount of people Dietz had: Around 67 people total, students and the adults helping to teach or build.

But Line Mountain musical director Beverly Lash still imparted the same principles in her students. There is no star in theater, it’s an ensemble. A similar refrain can be heard in the interviews with the cast, crew and staff of all the musicals this year. And next year. As long as there is theater.

These are students who worked for weeks in total to produce one weekend of performances — with maybe an encore or two at events such as The Daily Item's Valley Musical Red

KYRA SMITH-CULLEN Features Editor

Carpet Celebration, where several singers revisited their roles for their peers in the Valley. And yet, many choose to do it again.

The collaboration, the passion and the dedication are the lifeblood of theater and those principles can be translated into so many other aspects of life. Like when you’re putting together weeks’ worth of coverage about high school musicals in the local newspaper, as I have.

When I took over Valley Musicals, I was lucky enough to have a village to help me. Though I’ve worked on elements of it in the past, I was mainly a stagehand — editing stories and designing pages in the weekly Applause section. This was my first year assigning stories, getting reviewers in the theaters, talking to directors about their productions. None of this would have been possible without the help of Cindy O. Herman, who wrote previews for every musical; Jove Graham and Jerri Brouse, who reviewed several musicals each; Robert Inglis — who helped me organize all of this in addition to photographing and recording many of the musicals before creating video segments highlighting all of them — and Anna Wiest, who stepped in when she was needed to review musicals or fill in for Rob. I wouldn’t have had a clue about the steps involved in planning the Red Carpet Celebration or this publication without The Daily Item Publisher Fred Scheller, Advertising Manager Lori Seebold and Editor Bill Bowman. My colleagues Eric Pehowic, Chelsea Ritter, Aron Agerton and Karen Renninger didn’t have as tangible of a role in this endeavor, but without their work, I would never have been able to do this.

It takes a village, to be sure.

1. Adriann Rodriguez, Hannah Yucha and Gabby McGinley sing in Mount Carmel’s “Mamma Mia!”

2. Jera Strony and Alyssa Sargent rehearse for Danville’s “The Addams Family”

3. Summer Evans leads a song from Lewisburg’s “Guys and Dolls”

4. Chloe Masser performs a solo from Line Mountain’s “The Sound of Music.”

5. Ellie Sweigard sings during Meadowbrook Christian’s “Guys and Dolls”

6. Kyle Boonie rehearses for Midd-West’s “Godspell”

7. Kyra Zechman performs in a number from Mifflinburg’s “Beauty and the Beast”

8. Chloe Russell sings during Milton’s “Chicago: Teen Edition”

9. Hailey Beaver performs during Selinsgrove’s “The Little Mermaid”

10. Alaina Glowatski sings a song from Shamokin’s “Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street: School Edition”

11. Jayla Lopez rehearses for Shikellamy’s “Tuck Everlasting”

12. Josh Lahr sings during Southern Columbia’s musical, “Bye Bye Birdie”

13. Gavin Hormell plays the lead role in Warrior Run’s “The Lightning Thief”