Redwood’s drama teacher shares what made next year’s musical the final choice.
By Laysha Vargas-Guizar
During lunch on Tuesday, May 14th, 2024, Mrs. Galvan announced next year’s musical: The Little Mermaid. The musical is based on Disney’s 1989 animated movie with the same title.
When deciding on what musical to choose, Galvan had a few guidelines she wanted to follow.
“The criteria for next year was something family-friendly, something that had lots of parts for girls and for guys, something that we had never done before, preferably a Disney but it didn’t have to be a Disney but there’s not a lot of family-friendly shows that aren’t Disney. We also have an opportunity in this if we need to gender-bend if we don’t have enough guys for a certain thing or if we don’t have enough girls for a certain thing, they can be opposites.”
She mentions characters such as Skuttle, Sebastian, and the Chef are all roles that can have their gender’s alternate or be gender neutral. This allows anyone to have the opportunity to play these iconic characters.
Galvan says that everyone who will be involved in the production is excited to be working on this musical.
“It’s music that Mr. Carrio and Mr. Ray are excited about. The choreography, Jill Hackbar, our new choreographer, is super excited. I’m excited for all the tech, cause it’s under the sea, and making all that happen is going to be really cool. The kids that are Juniors this year, in Stagecraft, are super excited about making coral, and making all of these things.”
The creation of the stage underwater is one of the most exciting parts of this musical.
Galvan has built the show once before since she was a stage manager, so she says she has an idea on how to make these props look amazing and do it cheaply.
Stay tuned until next year to see how this exciting musical turns out!
Laysha Vargas-Guizar
Laysha Vargas-Guizar is a writer in Journalism 2. Editor of Arts & Entertainment, they host the Everything Entertainment Podcast along with their co-host Aiden Lupian.
Tags: drama, musical, rangers, Redwood, redwood gigantea, redwood high school, redwood journalism, redwood rangers, rhs, theater, visalia ca