Seussical Jr dazzles crowds

LEONGATHA Primary School’s production of the musical Seussical Jr has been a resounding success, with sell out crowds, lots of smiles and wonderful performances all in abundance.
Performing six shows across four days last week, more than 650 students took to the stage at Mesley Hall in Leongatha to act, dance and sing in front of a 400 strong crowd most shows.
The school’s performing arts teacher Jessica Stein, who directed, cast, and organised the production, said the entire school community was blown away by the massive student ensemble.
“I had a really sobering thought during one of the shows when I remembered the oldest performers on the stage were only 12,” Ms Stein said.
“Every kid in the school was involved. Each grade had a different part of the storyline. To see some of the kids who wouldn’t usually do something like this get involved anyway was wonderful.
“You could see as soon as the curtains were drawn and the lights hit, their mannerisms changed. They smiled and had some fun.
“The production was based on the work of famous children’s author Dr Seuss, with a multitude of classic characters like The Cat in the Hat, Horton the Elephant, Jojo, and The Grinch all making appearances throughout the musical.
“We had about 100 grade 5 and 6 students audition for main roles, with 20 being selected for each of the two casts. Everybody did a fantastic job, but we did find some absolute stars. Taine Lowe, Ruby Kuhan and Erika Allen absolutely blew everybody’s socks off,” Ms Stein said.
Ms Stein was also quick to praise the community for coming together to help make the production happen, with help from parents, teachers, high school students and other volunteers being paramount.
“Peter Western and the Leongatha Lyric Theatre were amazing. They helped us with staging and setting everything up. We had some Year 9 students from Leongatha Secondary College come down and paint some sets. My husband, Ben, worked tirelessly on costumes and props.
“The amount of stuff I dropped off to Brooke Cashmore, one of the parents at the school, to paint, was heaps. There were just so many people that came together as a community to get this production on stage.”
For Ms Stein, the entire 18 month process to get the show on stage has been a whirlwind. Now that the production has concluded though, and the results have been outstanding, she can finally take it all in.
“This production was all about fun, all about colour. Musical theatre is my world and what I live for. To be able to give a little taste of the stage to these kids and know that they genuinely enjoyed it makes me feel really fuzzy inside,” she said.

Seeing double: India Curtis and Amber Checkley of Leongatha Primary School look identical as they play Things 1 and 2 during the school’s production of Seussical Jr.

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Posted by Tayla Kershaw on Aug 28 2018. Filed under Arts & Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry