With spring quickly approaching, many new activities and sports are preparing for their upcoming seasons, including the spring musical. The second musical to be produced at the school is “Grease,” and auditions will be held in the choir room from 3:30 p.m. to 6 p.m on Wednesday and Thursday next week.
“Just show up and be energetic,” choir and musical director Patrick Ribar said. “It’s just their energy that is going to be the big thing, and then who they are because ‘Grease’ is about high school stereotypes.”
The audition will consist of learning, singing and dancing “We Go Together” and students will also read lines from the script so the directors, Ribar and choir teacher Nathan Wallace, can get a feel of who is the best fit for each character.
“The way I’m going to approach it is that it’s supposed to be silly and funny, but there’s a couple of real hard-hitting moments in there that I think make people pause and remember,” Ribar said. “So that’s what’s fun about it for me.”
“Grease” is a musical about high schoolers in 1959, specifically the Pink Ladies and the T-Birds. The plot follows Danny Zuko, the leader of the T-Birds, and Sandy Dumbrowski, the new girl in town, who quickly get involved in each other’s lives. The two and their friends navigate core values, friendship and love while singing and dancing show tunes like “Summer Nights” and “We Go Together,” creating a nostalgic 1960s feel.
“I like ‘Grease’ because it’s high school, the thing we all have in common is we’ve all been to high school and it hasn’t changed much over the years,” Ribar said. “It’s a coming-of-age story.”
But, despite the coming-of-age aspect, “Grease” is different in many ways from last year’s musical production of “Matilda the Musical.” “Matilda” was rehearsed and performed in the fall of the 2023-2024 school year and interfered with other fall activities, making it difficult for some students to participate in. However, changing the musical to the spring will create new opportunities for students. And, another change to the musical program is the new choir director, Wallace. This is his first time working on a high school musical production.
“I’m excited to be the assistant director and kind of see Ribar’s process, because obviously he’s put on amazing productions in the past, from really, really big shows to smaller shows,” said Wallace. “It’s definitely a big strength of his, so I’m excited to watch that and kind of learn from the process.”