West High Theatre’s production of Elf Jr. recently took the stage, Dec 15-17. Michael Todd’s Theatre arts class performed four showings. With one class doing their showings Friday night and Saturday afternoon and another class doing their shows Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon. Tickets were $5 for children and $10 for adults. The play contains many musical numbers as Elf Jr. is a musical as opposed to the movie “Elf” many details from the movie were omitted for brevity and to make the play more appropriate for general audiences.
Junior, Trinity Heck played one of Santa’s helpers along with flier guys #1 and #2. Heck stated her favorite part of the production was “(My favorite part of) preparing for this musical was the friends I made and actually being able to see a visible difference as we rehearsed.” Heck further emphasized the bond formed between cast and crew members throughout the production. “The bond I have made with everyone is like a family bond, so I’m super close with everyone that was in it.” However, the production was not without challenges, Heck recounts the pressure the cast and crew were under during the production as well, “It definitely gets stressful at time but when it’s all all done and over you won’t even remember the stress, you’ll only remember the fun times and the memories you’ve made.” Despite the pressure of being on the Elf Jr. production, Faith believes that the comradery that comes with being part of such a production outweighs any stress involved with such a process.
Sophomore, Taiden Colley played Buddy the Elf for the second set of productions. Colley enjoyed playing with choreography in the rehearsal stages of the production, “My favorite part about preparing for the musical was being able to experiment with different dances and choreography to see what did and didn’t work and trying to fit in little bits of this and that to touch up my character.” Colley executed this very well, delivering an energetic performance with mannerism and details that can only come from rigorous practice. While the final product of this effort spoke for itself, Colley experienced nerves surrounding the production, “It was really nerve wracking not gonna lie, I felt every heartbeat under my costume… I felt like, now it’s showtime, and after this show there are no second chances to make a first impression on the audience.” Colley delivered on this first impression with roaring applause during the bow at the end of the show.
Overall, West High Theatre Arts production of Elf Jr. was an at times stressful process with a final product that was executed very well. Actors such as Heck and Colley brought life to their characters and the stage.
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