May 3, 2012
05/04/12 The Plymouth High School Performing Arts Department spring production of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” will hit the stage on Friday, May 4 and Saturday, May 5. Both performances will be at 7:30 p.m. in the PHS auditorium. All seats are $7.00 and can be purchased at the door before the show. Doors open at 7:00 p.m.
This year’s production features over 100 students under the direction of Charlotte Tyree, Jane Faulstitch, May Pat Glaub, and Bryan Ames. Tyree began doing shows at PHS in 1995. Both Faulstitch and Glaub came to the school in 1996and Ames, in 2007.
The students are rehearsing and performing as an extra curricular project without being graded.
Tyree said, “Everyone takes on a role for a big musical like this. Everyone helps with costumes and props.” Tyree said the stage crew builds and sets the stage area and works the lights and sound. She said, “The orchestra has to take on the orchestration of a Broadway show while the chorus and dancers have to learn the music and stage places.” She added, “Principal cast members have lines, songs, dances and blocking all to work on.”
Because of the cost to put on a production, the directors are only able to present a musical every other year. Tyree said, “Musicals are very expensive to put on. Most people don’t realize we have to pay a large sum of money to get the rights to do a musical and then, pay for the rental of all the scripts and instrumentation.”
Like the students, the four directors spend countless hours preparing. Tyree said they started talking in December about possible show titles. During the Christmas break, they read over the show previews and picked a show by the end of January. Without a break, they scheduled auditions in February. Tyree said, “We always try to select a show that the students will enjoy and that have significant number of parts so lots of students can be involved.”
By March, the orchestra, chorus, dancers and principal characters all had rehearsals starting. According to Tyree, by mid-April they begin rehearsals four nights week until the show time.
Carol Anders Correspondent