BP musical’s change of venue brings big successes
The set of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” featured several custom-made gargoyles and gargoyle masks, as well as cathedral bells and towers. Here, Rachel Winzenburg, left, as Clopin, and Jaylee Schleicher, center, as Esmeralda, try to plan her escape with the help of Quasimodo’s gargoyle friends. Staff photo by Kay Fate
It would be easy to see why Tammy Johnson might have felt discouraged heading into the fall musical.
The longtime director of the Blooming Prairie High School musical productions was dealing with a few issues:
- The new performing arts center at the school wouldn’t be ready in time for the performances, but …
- … their former venue, the old high school gym, had been remodeled, eliminating the stage.
So, the cast and crew of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” performed the musical as theater in the round, sometimes just a foot or so above – and maybe two feet away from – the audience, which surrounded them on three sides.
But in the words of artist Bob Ross, it seemed to be “a happy accident.”
“Everybody that I spoke with really enjoyed it,” Johnson said the week after the Nov. 9-11 performances.
“They loved it as a concept and thought that the play itself really fit very well there,” she said. “They used words like ‘fluid’ and ‘intimate,’ and I would agree with that. I was very pleased overall; the audience was very much engaged.”
Because the stage was gone, so was the former lighting system, but …
“The other comments that we got over and over was that the lighting was so much better – and it was – and that the sound was so much better,” Johnson said.
That’s because Roger Fette, of Faribault, learned of the potential plight and brought 12 LED lights and a computer program to shine them in any color. Previously, the stage was lit in white, red, or blue, and the lights were either on or off – no gradient lighting.
“It was very nice to have that component,” Johnson said, “and it really added to the drama of it.”
Any disappointment about not being in the new auditorium “dissipated, once we got going,” she said of the students. “What they had was better than what any group has ever had before, as far as staging and lighting and sound, and they recognized that.”
The traditional dinner theater on the final night wasn’t enjoyed at tables around the stage – that was gone, remember?
Instead, it was served in the Commons area of the high school, with reserved seating for the performance that followed.
“It was lovely,” Johnson said, and now it’s permanent.
“There’s nowhere to sit and have dinner in the new auditorium,” she said, “so it will stay in the Commons area.”
Johnson couldn’t provide an official attendance number, but said it was definitely up from previous years, including last year’s very popular “Elf.”
“I’m not sure what to attribute that to,” she said, but “the community really did turn out.”
In addition, people came from Kansas, Faribault, Rochester, Medford and Hayfield, she said.
Despite the commitment required by any theatrical production, Johnson said the senior members of the cast have a plan.
“They had hoped to be in the auditorium (for ‘Hunchback’), so they’re lobbying very hard to do a spring show,” she said.
“Those will be future discussions we’ll have to have with the administration, but they would very much like to do a performance in the new auditorium.”