Redwood’s drama teacher shares the process of coming up with this year’s musical and her excitement.
By: Isabel Barycki
During lunch on Tuesday, April 11, Drama announced next year’s musical: Mean Girls. As an iconic movie and musical, students expressed their excitement, but many don’t consider what goes into choosing musicals for Redwood.
Photo Courtesy of author
Many students were ecstatic to hear the reveal of next year’s musical.
Jacob Lucio ’24 and member of drama for 3 years look forward to the costumes and music. Lucio says, “I think it is a really good option with the people we have.”
Lucio says he is excited because “it is an iconic movie with a lot of iconic quotes on it so it is going to be really fun to see that on stage and it is going to have the first queer character in Visalia.”
Mrs. Galvan, Redwood’s drama teacher, theater director, and eighteen-year member of the drama program explains the complicated process of choosing a musical.
One complication that goes into choosing musicals is whether or not musical rights are available. Galvan says, “It is just like photocopying in a book, you can’t do that it is copyrighted.”
Luckily, in the last two years, Mean Girls has given rights to their musical allowing Redwood to perform it.
Photo Courtesy of RHS Website
Another part of the process is whether or not Redwood has the right people for the show. “For example, hairspray would not be a show that we could do necessarily at Redwood, we don’t have the right demographics for Hairspray,” says Galvan.
To fulfill roles and avoid bias when casting, students are not assigned roles until auditions. Galvan says, “We look at the students we know we have.”
Redwood has a variety of students to choose from. Galvan says, “We look to see if we have a multitude of students that will fit that spot.” So much so, that there may be as many as seventeen people to choose from for a role.
Due to the complicated process, Galvan says students do not help decide on the musical. When choosing a musical Galvan says, “I kind of get a feel of what they’re thinking.” However, no hints are given when deciding on a musical. “We try not to give it away because then it is not as fun,” says Galvan.
Unlike the iconic movie, Redwood will be performing the high-school friendly version of Mean Girls.
“The theme of Mean Girls is to be yourself and accept everybody for who they are and that’s what we need,” says Galvan.
Isabel Barycki
Isabel Barycki,´26 is a second year journalism member. Inside room 207 you can find her writing for the Features section for the Redwood Gigantea.
Tags: arts, arts and entertainment, drama, Isabel Barycki, mean girls the musical, musical, rangers, Redwood, redwood gigantea, redwood high school, redwood journalism, redwood rangers, rhs, rhs drama, visalia ca
