With the announcement of Foran High School’s next big annual play, “The Wizard of Oz,” the drama club is giving its all to make this musical their greatest one yet, through months of intense preparation and practice to bring the story to life.
The show follows previous years’ productions, including “Seussical,” “Legally Blonde,” and “Mamma Mia!”. The dates established for this year’s play are March 6, 7, and 8; however, the time has not yet been announced.
Senior Sunny Montanaro, a member of the drama club for all four years of high school, is playing the role of the Cowardly Lion. He comments, “There’s so much that goes into shows behind the scenes, learning lines and songs, creating the costumes, the sets, getting along with each other. It takes months.”
Other stars of the cast include Kiera Beck as Dorothy, Ava McLaughlin as Aunt Em/Glinda, Lexi Kochanowicz as Hunk/Scarecrow, Rose Bruno as Hickory/Tin Man, Jaida-Marie Frias as Almira Gulch/The Wicked Witch of the West, Zoey Leone as Professor Marvel/Wizard of Oz and many other actors found on the cast list on the Foran drama club’s Instagram.
The rehearsals for the show will take place throughout December, January, and February. Music rehearsals will take place in December, followed by staging and dancing in January and February. This year’s show is heavily reliant on set pieces and props. The stage crew is helping in the background, controlling the curtains and creating the set pieces and props. To create the environment, the stage crew is using lots of flats, canvases, and set pieces from other shows.
Senior Joey Kaminski is this year’s stage manager and designer. She works on painting and schedules times. She says, “Making new props is a long and expensive process, so props sometimes need to be reused unless we need to make new ones.”
The play is about a farm girl who travels to the mystical land of Oz. The cast and crew cannot change the script too much, only switching things when there is inappropriate content, Montanaro says. “Legally, we have to do as close to the script as we can,” Montanaro says, “When you have the rights to the show, there are only so many things you can do. We stick to the script. We keep the same story going on.”
The cast is very excited for the play this year and thinks it’s a very funny show with funny comedic moments and costumes. Ian McNulty, the director of the musical, comments, “The audience should look forward to a family-friendly show with amazing and incredible student actors and stage crew.”
