The musical story is set in 1983 in Bomont, Indiana where dancing has been outlawed by the local church. Newcomer Ren McCormack meets a new set of friends and helps them realize the spirit that dancing has to offer and helps them reintroduce it to the community.
This year’s production has about 60 students with many high school seniors and three, McKenzie Hansen playing Rusty, Finley Stineff as Willard Hewitt and Charity Rainwater as Vi Moore. Three seniors discussed the content of the musical and their roles in the production. The first thing they noted together is that this is the first musical, post COVID, that has this many students who have participated in all four years of the spring musical.
Hansen explains more of the details of the story:
“Well, Ren is this new kid. He's from Chicago. He loves to dance. He comes into town and kind of convinces these kids that they can actually make a change. So he's kind of riling things up. He talks to the town council. He makes a speech to try to convince them.”
Stineff provides more:
“I play Willard Hewitt, and he's kind of a guy who warms up to Wren first. And I don't know, it's just a goofy story about kids trying to change things and make it more tolerable to live in their town. You know, there's an aspect of censorship to the story.
Hansen also commented on the stage components from a more technical point of view: “there are a lot of sets this year. I don't think we've ever had a musical with this many sets in the past, or at least in our time here. Our set team is so good.”
Maura Gibson is the choreographer for this year’s production and the seniors commented on the dance components of the show also. “Maura is amazing. Her choreography is really cool. We also have four elected student choreographers, dance captains, that have choreographed some stuff so that Mara doesn't have to do all of it. There are a lot of Nutcracker people this year, and they're really talented. So, that's helpful, too. Yeah, we have a huge dance core, which is really awesome for those of us who are not dancers.”
Despite the fact that the kids aren’t supposed to be dancing, that feature is still a large part of the theme in the show. The senior performers share that: “the kids kind of take any opportunity they can to dance when the adults aren't around. So there's also this fun kind of, like, rebellious,component to dancing. It's forbidden, but it's still something that kids want to do and to do, just not, you know, out in public or, like, not condoned by the church or by the city, but it's something that they still like, want to do and participate in.
There's a misconception about what dancing means, and that's kind of come from Reverend Moore, and they're trying to prove that dancing doesn't have to be like drugs and alcohol and bad can be like expression and fun and think that's like, like the song I'm Free/ Heaven Help Me. That's kind of what's going on. They're all like, finally dancing…”
Finally, the seniors shared what they’re planning for next year. Stineff plans to head to Canada, Hansen will travel to Costa Rica, Japan, Spain and Italy. And Rainwater concludes, “I'm going to go to Indiana, which is kind of ironic. That's where Footloose happens. I'm gonna go to Indiana to study American Sign Language Interpreting. But I'm also gonna do theater, because I want to keep doing theater.”
There will be four performances available this weekend: March 19 & 20 at 7:00 PM and March 21, 3:00 & 7:00 PM. Tickets are available at the Homer Bookstore & at the door with cash or check only. Adults $15, Elders $12, Youth $ 10, Family $40. All proceeds will go to the Homer High School choir program.
Reporting from Homer, this is Emilie Springer.
