The spring musical, “Mean Girls,” held auditions in December, and the cast has been rehearsing for almost a month, preparing for their performances on March 26 to 28.
This year, the community was invited to pitch suggestions for the musical, which was then chosen by a group of interested students.
Maura Vaughn, Branson’s director of theater, said that in the past, she and another musical director would be the ones to decide the musical.
“At some point, I realized that he and I would gravitate towards very similar material, but it wasn’t necessarily the material that the students were interested in. It seemed like it would be a missed opportunity not [to] have the students’ input,” said Vaughn.
Many logistics go into deciding whether a certain musical can work at Branson.
“One of our biggest challenges is space. We can’t have an orchestra that’s too big because of the size of the theater. We can’t really put more than 25 people on stage.,” said Vaughn.
Cost is also a factor: “the rights to the musical have to be under a certain price point,” said Vaughn.
“We had quite a large amount of recommendations, and after we discussed them, the students ended up voting, and “Mean Girls” was the top choice,” said Louisa Conte, an English and art fellow at Branson.
After the musical was chosen, the preparation began.
“Once we got the scripts, I spent a lot of time before the rehearsals rewriting some of the lyrics and scenes,” said Conte. “We want to be sensitive and make sure everyone is comfortable saying and doing everything in the musical.”
This included “changing some of the vocal parts based on what talent we have and to what level we want to challenge certain people,” said Vaughn. “Sometimes the extremes are just too challenging for high school students.”
Following the preparation is the casting and audition process.
“The students absolutely think we precast it. We don’t,” said Vaughn.
Vaughn described what she looks for when casting, saying, “A lot of time, an actor needs to be a triple threat. They need to, most importantly, sing well, but also be able to act and dance well. Then we also look at something called the blend of voices, so how well two students’ voices work together. We think about who has never really had a lead role and whether or not it’s time to give them that challenge. It all comes down to the audition.”
Once the show has been cast, the first part of rehearsals is led by Kindra Scharich, a music teacher at Branson, as they focus on learning the music and songs.
“We’ve been frontloading the music portion of it just because you can’t really dance or block until you know the songs. Going forward, we’re starting to shift focus into actually getting the students on their feet and knowing where they’re supposed to be on stage,” said Conte.
Not all the preparation happens in rehearsals; a large amount of work happens behind the scenes.
“There’s a lot of work going on with the tech club as they are starting to look at all the lighting and sound cues. Two freshmen, Otelia [Speece] and Corrina [Bouligny], are helping Alex and me work on costumes. DiAnn [Montemayor] will build the sets over mid-winter break. So it’s kind of all happening at once,” said Conte.
The musical is comical and fun, but also covers important themes.
“It’s going to be fast-paced, and it’s going to be super fun to watch. But hopefully there’ll be some of those moments that get you to look up and go, ‘Oh, wow, yeah, that does happen in high school,’” said Vaughn.
“I think it’s really exciting because it’s relevant to a lot of student’s high school experience. It’s obviously overblown and really dramatic, but I think it gives the cast and all the people who are going to watch it a chance to just really think about their role in a community like Branson and how they decide to treat other people,” said Conte.
