An award winning musical is making its way to LaRue County High School for a limited time only. The Sound of Music production is a real life Glee season- as the chorus group, the speech and debate team, and the baseball players join together to put on a memorable performance. A great deal of work has been put into making sure this musical is the best it can be, over 11 hours a week, and as the date grows nearer the practices become more intense. The combination of such different groups leads to many different opinions and views from the chorus, the speech team, and those in charge of making sure everything runs smoothly.
The Sound of Music is well known for its beautiful and catchy tunes, and the chorus group has taken on the challenge of mastering each song. The leading role, Maria, played by sophomore Alexia Trumbo, illustrates the naive, over-enthusiastic woman perfectly. Alexia had to face many obstacles in the beginning of the production. When asked what the most difficult moment to overcome, she laughed, looking around nervously as everyone in the cast already knew the answer, “My first kiss.”
Alexia is a natural performer, and it’s not a shock that she so easily adapted to the stage. She has attended each practice, no matter what, and when asked about her most memorable experience with the play, she laughed once again before admitting, “my first kiss,” but she didn’t stop there, as her love for performing and singing became more obvious, “learning new songs from my favorite classical movie/musical has been one of my favorite things about this play.”
The speech and debate; however, struggle with the even longer hours required of them. Speech tournaments occur all day Saturday, and practicing for events must happen before play practice or at home independently. Zoie Webb, a speech competitor, has worked hard to keep her first place in prose for each speech competition and memorize her lines at the same time.
I asked her what makes the hard work enjoyable and she’s very quick to respond. “As a solo performer, performing with my really close friends and being involved with them has been really amazing, and making new friends is also a major plus.” However, as conditioned as Zoie is to performing in front of crowds, she still had fears to overcome. When questioned as to what they were, she doesn’t skip a beat before spurting out, “singing, definitely the singing in front of people.”
The Sound of Music is one of the largest cast LaRue County Drama club has ever taken on, with over 25 LaRue County students in the production. Elena Cecil, the head stage manager states frantically, as the cast hurries around to prepare for practice and set up, “Practices and getting stuff put together was and still is a major challenge.”
The cast only has 14 mics, and it was up to Elena to figure out how to handle such a struggle. However, Elena doesn’t regret signing up for such a large task. She continued, as she searched for microphones, “…the people are really fun to be around. There’s always laughter occurring, which is not always a good thing, but this play is mainly for getting together and having fun in a tradition that occurs each year.”
The Sound of Music is one of the largest projects ever taken by Mrs. Katy Cecil and Mrs. Amber Tucker- and with a baby on the way for the LaRue County Chorus teacher it was an even greater project. The first production will be December 11, and there will be a total of 8 shows performed for the county and school districts. The tickets are to be purchased at the door, and intermission includes cookies and coffee. The LaRue County Drama Club has certainly worked hard and it has paid off in the end.