On Aug. 18, the Parkway School District brought together thirty students from all four Parkway high schools to perform their first show of the all district musical “Ranked.”
“I loved how everyone was from a different school, but we all had one thing in common and came together to work on the project,” assistant stage manager junior Annabelle Zimmerman said.
In addition to students, teachers were also brought in from each school to participate.
“Everything felt like it was on a bigger scale because they had kids and teachers from all four high schools, so everything felt like such a bigger deal,” said Parkway South cast member Leila Chettfour.
The musical, “Ranked”, covers a topic that high-schoolers can relate to: the subject of perfectionism and performance pressure. The musical’s lead, Lily, tackles her stress of wanting to be at the top of her school’s grade leaderboard, while everyone around her crumbles under the pressure trying to do so. The premise of feeling the need to score well is a relatable one, as many real teenagers are plagued with the need for success for the promise of a prestigious adulthood.
“This script is unique because all the characters are teenagers. It’s not very often where you find a whole show that’s based on high school students. It was playing to a lot of their understanding of the world that they live in because that’s what they do,” Parkway North theater director Chad Little said.
“Ranked” was liked not just by the actors and directors, but by the audience too.
“The plot was really good. I was actually interested,” said freshman Paige Olmstead, who attended a performance. “It was a very good tech crew… it made us look at the characters we were supposed to look at and not at the background crew.”
Unlike plays, performers in musicals have to memorize not only their lines but the songs and choreography which can make preparations more intense.
“The thing I practiced most when it came to my own part, was a song that I had in the show called ‘Work Harder.’ I am not a trained singer, so being handed that really hard song to do was really intimidating. It took a lot of practice to get it to sound how I wanted it to sound, but I think it all worked out by showtime,” Chettfour said.
The tech crew also had a different role and tried new effects to create an atmosphere worthy of the script and support the actors on stage.
“[A musical is] not exactly scene intensive. But it’s still amazing because there’s a lot more sound interaction, a lot more dancing from the actors, even more props for the actors to use,” construction member and spotlight operator senior Trent Lair said.
“The tech is really strong; the set design was perfect for what we were doing. It was very minimal so we were really focused on the characters and the actors, and we did a lot of new technology with tvs and video recording and audio recording and led light, so it was a lot of new stuff to learn,” Little said.
Even though the tech crew isn’t on stage, they help guide the actors backstage and set the scene for the actors.
“After putting lots and lots of hours into my sets and my props, it’s amazing to see actors and how they can bring it to life like a whole show,” Lair said.
With a few weekend practices before the end of last school year, and three solid weeks of rehearsals and production before opening night, the cast and crew worked hard to perfect the production.
“When you get to the point where you’re onstage performing in front of people, you’ve already run through the show a million times. So there isn’t much nervousness, but whenever I do [get nervous], I just tell myself that I’ve done it 100 times before. I’m just going to do it again the same way tonight,” cast member senior Jack Prinzi said.
Putting together a performance in such a short time made cast members and crew rely on each other which meant they had to build trust and community quickly.
“I was pretty nervous at first because I only knew a few people, but we spent almost every day together so the whole cast got really close. After a few rehearsals, it felt like I’d known everyone longer than I had,” Chettfour said.
The musical was performed at both Parkway West and Parkway North on two separate weekends.
“Overall, it was really awesome. It was really fun,” Prinzi said.
