Tom Sawyer production will replace traditional Shakespeare at MJHS

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Here at Mapleton Jr. High School, we highly encourage the theater arts.  One way of doing this is through our yearly performances of Shakespeare’s works.  This year things are different.  Ms. Lewis, the Theater arts teacher at MJHS, is for the first time in the history of MJHS, directing a musical instead of the traditional Shakespeare play.   The musical production that has been chosen is Tom Sawyer.  Because this production will be a musical, the auditions were difficult.  There were two auditions to go through for the singing parts. In the first audition students had to prepare 12-16 memorized measures and sing them in front of Ms. Lewis, Ms. Parker and Ms. Thompson.  If students did well enough with the singing they were invited back to stage two.  This involved acting with a prearranged, two character scene or monologue from the script.  There were over 100 students that tried out for this production and about 30 were cast in the play.  A few of the lucky students that made it are: as Tom Sawyer: Jake Blonquist, as Becky Thatcher: Emelia Call, as Jeff Thatcher: Brandon Squire, as Widder Douglas: Samantha Hansen, as Huck Finn: Zac Griffin.  The cast has been working very hard with rehearsals coming as early as 6:30am and staying till around 5:00pm.  Ms. Lewis and Ms. Thompson are working even harder than the rest of the cast because they are involved the whole time, plus putting in a lot of extra work to make this production the best it can be.  This musical is scheduled to be performed April 3rd through 6th and should be a wonderful production.  We hope to see you there.

Attributions
By: Jacob Blonquist MJHS Student Writer