Tall tales, giants, mermaids and even a wicked witch tell the story of Edward Bloom’s life. This year’s spring musical “Big Fish” showed two sides as it switches between the past and the present of Bloom’s life, and secrets were revealed as stories were shared between father and son.
“The atmosphere is a combination of celebration and hope; moments where a tear may fall and stories like dreams come alive; of love and all loves frustrations forgiven,” director Kit Crawford said.
The scenery of the musical changes regularly between different periods of time throughout Bloom’s life.
” ‘Big Fish’ takes place over 40 years in several different locations so our set was suggestive as it needed to be so many places at once,” scenic designer and social studies teacher Sean Barber said.
The production consisted of a lot of people working together; The cast, the tech and the directors each played an important role in creating a successful musical.
“Without the ability to work together, there is no theatre,” Crawford said.
Being a part of the theatre family created great experiences and helped many students grow as people. Understanding that people make mistakes and patience is very important.
“They need to remember to just breathe when things in the show go wrong and to remember to not take everything personally,” Olivia Aguzzi said.
40 students and two teacher sponsors built the sets and created costumes. The cast consisted of 52 students, the stage managers and the director.
“Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Each job has specific responsibilities that if not accomplished means an incomplete show; means a puzzle with an incomplete picture to see,” Crawford said.
The cast rehearsed five days a week, three hours a day for about three months in order to perfect the scenes. Building the sets for the production took every day until opening night to finish.
“The set was a decent size and had a lot of little parts, so we used every day to get the set 100% complete,” Barber said.
When the theatre cast got to opening night, they were very well prepared to put on an outstanding production. The day of the show created much thrill among everyone.
“Opening night is probably the night where the cast has the most hype and excitement,” Le Blanc said.
This musical was written by John August after he read the “Big Fish” manuscript by Daniel Wallace and music and lyrics are by Andrew Lippa.
“It is a more contemporary show than we’ve produced in recent years,” Crawford said.
Big Fish is different than musicals performed before as instead of a buildup of events, this production goes back and forth between different life events; it is a more contemporary musical going from the main characters childhood to his life now and the stories he tells.
“The set helps portray the show by showing both the real side of the story and the tall tales that the show is about,” Barber said.
The main character told his son many tales as he grew up which created distance between the two, the musical shows them retelling the old tales, and his son realizing the message his father was trying to show throughout the stories.
“This musical is unique as instead of just one story it is about all the stories that a dad tells his child,” Barber said.