The Theater Department is performing “Seussical: The Musical” on February 17, 18, and the 19 in the PAC. The tickets will be $7 at the door. “Seussical: The Musical” is broken up into two acts and parallels the plot of “Horton Hears a Who!”. The first act begins when a boy meets the Cat in the Hat (Dylan Coon), the Cat in the Hat decides to give the boy his hat and that is the beginning of an epic journey through the world of Dr. Seuss.
“The plot is mostly song, there’s not much dialogue,” senior Nicolette Lewis said. “It’s complicated, but it’s mostly about Horton trying to save Who-ville”
This complex musical goes through 13 of the Dr. Seuss books and including various characters and settings. The cast will perform 39 total songs in the show, including “Oh The Thinks That You Can Think”, “Monkey Around” and “The Whos’ Christmas Pageant”.
The cast has been working very hard on the production since the auditions back in November. To audition, potential cast members had to fill out paper work and display their skills in singing, acting and dancing. The cast list was quickly put up days after the auditions.
The cast had rehearsal every Monday through Friday after school for two hours. On some occasions the cast would come in on Saturdays to work on the set as well.
“We’ve been drilling the music for hours after school every week,” senior Jordan Brown said. “Each of us is doing work at home on our own trying to make this a wonderful production, which it really will be.”
The cast will perform the original version of the play and not the altered “Susseical Jr.” version. This version of the show takes out a majority of the play and leaves it as one act rather than two. The Junior version removed the entire military subplot to be more appealing to the younger children and their guardians. The musical has gone on two United States tours and one United Kingdom tour. The BV West version is very family friendly.
Seussical premiered in 2000 on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theater and was originally created by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. The show was well received and has earned various awards.
“[Seussical] is really a family musical, while other shows like Little Shop of Horrors and Sweeney Todd were definitely not,” senior Rebecca Francis said. “It’s lots of bright colors and crazy costumes and all this heart warming music, totally different than what we’ve been doing.”
Response from the student body has been positive. Many of the students have fond memories of the various Dr. Seuss books from their childhood and the various productions that have come to fruition from these works. Students are excited to see characters that they loved as children.
“I’m very excited to see this play,” senior Rachel Kenton said. “ I loved the Dr. Seuss book when I was little and I know that cast has worked hard to make this a great show.”