“Bye Bye Birdie” flies high at show nights

Teenage heart-throb Conrad Birdie, played by senior Nathan Ferguson, gets a warm welcome by screaming fans from the small town Ohio. Hugging him is junior Danielle Hanson who played one of the many crazed Conrad Birdie fan club members during the song “Honestly Sincere”.

Kate Lichter, Staff Writer

During the three month long process, the cast and crew of about 50 students for the musical “Bye Bye Birdie”, finally received the chance to showcase their work. The group collaborated together Monday through Friday from 4 to 6 but added an hour and more as the performance approached.

“It was kind of stressful when I found out how much of a time commitment it would be,” junior Hannah Miedema said. “But overall it was a really awesome experience.” Even though the practices were long, she and the cast grew close through cast parties and group activities allowing them to meet others they might not have without the musical.

“We did a lot of team building activities in the very beginning,” junior Greta Hammond said. “[Then] we could get to know each other and learn to trust each other.” By the end of the journey, through all the memorization and some of interesting first impressions the cast and crew of “Bye Bye Birdie” was able to take to the stage earning positive comments after all their work.

“One of our first rehearsals, Mr. Fitzpatrick, when we first met him was kind of memorable because he brought a ton of tennis balls and was like ‘I will throw these at you if you do something wrong,'” Miedema said.

Once the first performances rolled around, the cast found confidence on stage through feeding off energy from one another when acting and singing on stage. “As a preformer, I mean being on stage and performing is so much fun to me and I just really enjoyed opening night, with all the nerves,” senior Tyler Davis said.

Fitzpatrick orchestrated the show alongside students and was pleasantly surprised by the way the cast and crew worked with one another to get the job done. “The (greatest accomplishment was their) ability of so many different students to produce a wonderful show,” Fitzpatrick said. “Many of the students prior to the show did not interact with each other, they were able to work together and create new friendships.”

The cast and crew preformed April 24 and 25 at 7 p.m. as well as the 26 at 2 p.m. in the auditorium.