By Samantha Rauh
April 8-10, the Arlington High School Gilbert and & Sullivan Club will perform their annual spring musical. This year’s show is The Who’s Tommy, which the club originally planned to perform in the spring of 2020 before the pandemic shut down school. This will be the first in-person musical that AHS has been able to put on since 2019.
The show, a musical based on English rock band The Who’s 1969 album Tommy, is about a boy, Tommy Walker, who witnesses a traumatic event that leaves him unable to see, hear, or speak, but he ends up being an expert pinball player. True to its origin, Tommy is a rock musical, which the cast described as being a new theatrical genre to work on. “It’s a different type of music; different type of style that goes along with it,” said senior Maria Mantini, the dance captain and a choreographer. “The music is really well written,” added Mrs. Mara Walker, the show’s music director. “A lot of the dramatic things and the characters themselves are really well-portrayed in [it].” She said that the character of Tommy’s uncle Ernie is “kind of a creepy guy” and that that comes across in his character’s song. She described the song as being “odd” and having parts that are partially spoken.
As opening night approaches, preparations are in full swing, with rehearsals every day after school. Two rehearsals per week, the focus is on the music, whether it be solos, small-group rehearsals, or full-cast numbers. Additionally, Mrs. Walker said that while they were rehearsing in the chorus room, the cast had moved the chairs out of the room during rehearsals and had the opportunity to do some blocking (positioning actors in their places on stage) and rehearse more off-book. The show will be performed at the Mosesian Center for the Arts in Watertown due to the new AHS auditorium not yet being complete, and the cast only started rehearsing at the venue on March 27, a little less than two weeks before opening night. This created a challenge for the cast and crew in terms of staging the show, but they did the best they could to make the chorus room as much like the venue stage as possible. “Every day before rehearsal, [the stage managers] measure out with yarn the dimensions of the stage. So even though we’re in the chorus room, we kind of know what the stage will look like and where we can move around,” said Maren White, a junior who plays the role of Tommy’s aunt.
The fact that the musical was going to be performed in spring 2020 but was shut down is bringing up memories for those who are old enough to have been in the original cast. White, who was a freshman in the spring of 2020, remembers that time. She describes how the cast had just finished running through Act Two for the first time when the directors told them that school was going to be closed due to the pandemic. People were shocked, she said, but that the AHS drama community stayed connected virtually even when they couldn’t perform together. Moreover, doing the musical again two years later has had benefits, such as upperclassmen who already know the music and choreography. However, “it’s a little bit harder because you’re changing things. We’re moving to a new building; we’re going to be performing in a different space. Some people are cast in new roles. So, you kind of have to reimagine parts of it, which can be hard,” remarked Mantini, who was also involved in the original 2020 production.
Behind the scenes, the Drama Guild’s Publicity Committee has been busy getting the word out and collecting revenue for the show. At a recent meeting, they discussed ways to publicize the event and get people to buy tickets. “It’s not taking place at the school, so people might be like ‘oh, I don’t want to drive out to see that. And so we’re trying to be like, ‘oh, no, it’s going to be so good. You should come anyway,’” said freshman Allie Walsh, a member of the committee and the show’s ensemble. On the Thursday before the show opens, there will be a short presentation in advisory about it, and Publicity Committee members have been putting up lots of posters around the school and town to advertise. Furthermore, the committee is creating an Instagram account for the relatively little-known musical’s characters, which Walsh describes as a “knockoff” of another popular Instagram account, the AHS Confessions page, where students can anonymously share opinions or seek advice. She explained that the “characters” send in “confessions” that the committee hopes will spark the interest of the AHS community and motivate them to see the show in order to gain clarity.
Another important facet of publicity for the show is sponsorships. Any individual or group (such as a class or club) can donate $10 or more to the musical to get their name in the playbill, and the committee discussed having cast members ask their teachers to talk to their classes about giving money to the show in order to maximize sponsorships.
Above all, the cast and crew want the AHS community to know that the musical is going to be amazing and that they should come and see it. “I think that the AHS drama community is really fun and really incredible. I love our directors. I love all the actors I work with,” said White. “The choreography is great; the music is great. Everyone is so talented. It’s a fun show.”
The shows are Friday, April 8th and Saturday, April 9th at 7:30 PM and Sunday, April 10th at 2:00 PM at the Mosesian Center for the Arts in Watertown. You can purchase tickets here.
Here is the Tommy Confessions Instagram page.
The Ponder Page 