By Rachel Emily Auton
March 25, 2014. Watauga High School is putting the finishing touches on their production of Rodger’s and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music, their of choice spring musical for this year. The curtains will rise in WHS’s Ross Auditorium April 3-5 at 7 p.m.
“I always love this part of production because it’s where everybody gets to do really hard work and all of your work starts to pay off,” said Sarah Miller, co-director of the musical.
“You start to see all of these bits and pieces that you’ve been working on separately come together on stage.”
Miller is co-directing the production of more than 200 students, teachers and community members with Zach Walker, whose 8 year old daughter plays the role of Gretel.
“Zach and I have about 33 years of musical theater between the two of us,” said Miller.
“One of the reasons we chose it is because neither Zach nor I have ever directed this production before, which is rare when you have the wealth of experience that both of us bring to the table.”
Watauga High School has been putting on spring musicals since 1990, though this year’s is only fourth in the line of musicals to grace the state-of-the-art Ross Auditorium stage after the move to the new school building in 2010. The Sound of Music follows Fiddler on the Roof, Suessical and Footloose.
“We want to work to serve the space,” said Miller. “We want to have a production as professional and energetic and full scale as the space is.”
The production, which is sponsored by the drama department, features a large cast with Sidney Ginn and Evan Jones in the leading roles as Maria and Captain Von Trapp, respectively.
“This might just seem like a musical theater production, but it’s life training,” said Miller.
“Everything the kids are doing on stage here is authentic real world training. They have to learn to work with others, recall information and share it repeated amounts of time and engage in professional quality of work. They’ll use all of that way outside of here.”
Tickets for the musical go on sale Thursday, March 25 and will be available while they last in the lobby of WHS during lunches from 12-2 pm.
“Tickets are a flat rate of $10,” said Miller. “It’s less than a movie and three times as fun.”
For more information, call 828-264-2407.
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