On April 23, Linganore High School (LHS) opened their spring musical, “The Drowsy Chaperone.” Defined as “a musical within a comedy,” the show pulled many curious viewers to the auditorium. The directors Stephanie Felmet and Daniel Lake, cast, musical pit and crew had been preparing the show for the past months.
The show was narrated by “The Man in the Chair’”, played by LHS sophomore Ethan Mount. Mount shared that this is the largest role he has ever had in a school production.
“The main struggle I’ve gone through with this role in particular is just the vast quantity of lines to memorize,” Mount Said.
The character Mount portrays is constantly on the stage, as compared to the other characters who have multiple exits and entrances throughout the musical. As Mount had to memorize “21 monologues”, that were given without ever leaving the stage.
The show follows a hilarious plot, surrounding the romance between many characters. At the center is the wedding of Janet Vandergraph and Robert Martin, played by LHS seniors Addison Stacey and Levi Spelman respectively. Throughout the show, it is debated if the wedding is even going to happen.
Various other characters throughout the production meet and decide to get married, including Aldolpho (Riley Caldwell) and the Drowsy Chaperone herself (Cia Lucas), as well as Mrs. Tottendale (Maeve Lucas) and Underling (Griffin Stull)
This production, which started its progress back in December, was the last high school musical for the stage manager and LHS senior, Jordis Dimmick.
“I love watching the whole thing go from start to finish,” Dimmick said. Dimmick also shared how she enjoys seeing the cast and crew progress from knowing nothing about the show or each other, to living the show and loving each other.
Dimmick’s favorite part of being stage manager was getting to know everybody and make connections with everybody involved. She feels that she is “leaving with a lot more friends,” than she started with at the beginning of rehearsals.
Colette Riccio, the assistant stage manager, says her favorite part of her job was “getting to be a part of the reason why everything works during the show.” In this role there is no limit to who she gets to work with, with the opportunity to help all of the cast and crew.
Riccio says even though “it was hard to get the hang of everything,” during tech week, the show was still amazing. According to Riccio, this is all because of the hard work everyone involved in the show put in.
Overall, the show has its best performance at the matinee on April 26, performing for well over 200 audience members, all of which were very humoured throughout the show. They all left with smiles and had many positive comments about the show.
The members of the production went through a bittersweet experience as the show came to a close. So many memories and friends were made during that short time, and it makes it very hard to say goodbye.
“The Drowsy Chaperone” may not be a very well known show everywhere, but the cast and crew at LHS made it so many left the theater with a new favorite soundtrack and story.
