”I couldn't be prouder. This is the best show, the best audience, and they were fantastic,” co-director Nathalie Reid said after the final performance of Seussical the Musical on Saturday.
She said each of the show's four audiences brought a different personality that affected the style of each performance. Cast members stood on the stage while audience members filed past to congratulate them on a job well done after the show.
Colourful trees, a giant magnifying glass, and a giant bird's nest, which Horton the elephant adopts as his own, made for a visually stunning stage presence.
Zach Fontaine played the Cat in the Hat, who managed to get JoJo into more than her fair share of trouble. As the audience walked out of the Lyle Victor Albert Centre Saturday night, he said the production was a “blast from the past. It's going to be tough to not have anything to do at lunches and after school.”
Fontaine said the best part of the play was the friendships developed on stage with the cast and crew over the past few months.
“It's kind of like a new family. You just get to have fun with everybody and make this come together.”
Grade 11 student Sarah Wiatr played the part of JoJo. She said she felt sad after the final performance, but that the four performances for the community had been “amazing.”
She said she liked how the show was “out there and crazy. It got everybody excited and enthusiastic and that energy just carried out through the entire thing.”
She said Seussical trumped previous plays since she started performing musicals in Grade 9.
Barrett Luciak played Horton the elephant. He said the elephant hat we wore for the show presented a challenge in terms of making it hot under the hat.
“Thank goodness for being off-stage and ventilation and stuff otherwise I'd be cooking up here. It gets pretty warm underneath here for sure.”
His favourite part of the show was the audiences' reactions, although he also enjoyed the Cat in the Hat's “shenanigans” on stage, which he found hard not to laugh at.
Horton, while trying to protect Mayzie's (Emily Rondeau) egg in the nest, is captured by hunters and sold to the circus. Meanwhile, JoJo has been sent to military school by her parents to correct her outlandish “thinks.”
Miss Gertrude McFuzz, played by Krystal Cross, lamented the smallness of her bird tail. With the help of her bird friends, her tail grows, but it is now so large she can no longer fly.
Horton is put on trial for loitering on an egg and disturbing the peace. His clover, on which the Whos live, is threatened by being boiled in oil. The fate of the Whos rests on JoJo, who comes up with a “think” big enough to make the Whos heard although they are too small to be seen.
The school saved time and money by buying the colourful, other-worldly set from a school that had previously used it. The set was designed by Meadowlark Studios and shipped by B & R Eckels.
