The curtain is rising on this year’s Morgan school production of The Little Mermaid, promising a night of vibrant music, colorful characters, and months of hard work finally brought to life. Audiences from the 20th to the 22nd of March are expecting a lively retelling of the beloved story, filled with memorable songs and captivating performances of the original movie.
Expectations are high as students and audiences alike look forward to this year’s musical. “I think people have pretty high hopes for the musical. Last year was really, really good, so I hope that this year can match last year’s results, and maybe even better,” said Camryn Mazzarella, a senior at the Morgan School, who plays Scuttle in the musical.
Similar to Mazzarella, Leila Mustakos, one of the two main directors of this year’s production, believes that last year’s production is creating high expectations for The Little Mermaid this year. “After the success of last year’s production of Mamma Mia, the audience is looking for another entertaining production!”
The hype for this year’s musical isn’t just coming from Mamma Mia last year, but a new addition to the stage as well, which is flying characters. “The flying is really cool, which makes the characters look like they are swimming,” Mustakos said. Mazzarella agrees as well, saying, “I think people are really excited for the flying, and also, like, everybody knows this musical, because it’s a really popular movie.”
Shannon Robinson, Mustakos’ partner director for this musical, added that the cost for the help from the outside crew was approximately 11,000 dollars. “We had to bring in an outside crew from Broadway for flying because this is something new coming into the stage, and we needed to learn how to work it without them once they leave,” Robinson said. “It was really helpful to contact a crew from Broadway because it brings a ton of experience to the stage, since they have been helping out with tons of plays already in their careers.”
Sadie Higgins, a sophomore at the Morgan school, was a starfish and was one of the students who were flying during the play. “For preparation for flying, we had half a week of trial flights with a crew to make sure we were comfortable to be in the air and with the harnesses on with our costumes,” Higgins said. “Then, during our tech week, we didn’t have the flight crew that was working with us before; we only had the crew from the school, which helped us prepare for the musical even more, so the behind-the-scenes crew knew how to control everything.”
Although everything was going smoothly, there were still a few minor challenges. “One of the difficulties of the flight training was how the harness that helps you fly bruises you, but that was really it because it wasn’t really scary to be in the air for us,” Higgins added.
Mazzarella has been doing the Morgan musical for almost all her years at high school; only her sophomore year hasn’t seen the stage. “I’ve been doing musicals my whole life, and it’s just really fun for me. Also, all my friends do it, so it’s just a really great experience for me as well,” Mazzarella said.
As a main role in this year’s production, it makes Mazzarella feel like she is in a good position, and it makes her feel excited to perform. “It feels pretty good to be in a position like this. I haven’t really been in a main role since my freshman year when we did the Yankees. And so, it’s really fun to have lines and have a song, and interact with the characters a lot,” Mazzarella said.
Mustakos shares how it’s a lot of work and responsibility from the directing point of view of the musical. “You want to make sure you cast the parts correctly and that you adequately prepare the actors and actresses to take the stage,” Mustakos said. “Plus, there are things that the audience doesn’t think about when they watch the show, like sets, backstage crew, orchestra, lighting, etc.”
It takes up a lot of time doing these things, where “Mrs. Robinson and I have put in so many hours preparing the rehearsal process, auditioning characters, creating costumes and sets, and preparing all the technical elements,” Mustakos explained. “All of the hard work being done is worth it when we see the actors on stage for the first time in costume and with lights and sound bringing a story to life.”
The cast accomplished many things before performing the actual play, giving them more confidence to perform over the entire weekend of March 20th. “We have all of our costumes, and everybody knows their lines, and our songs are sounding really good so far. We’ve been working on our dances as well, and they are seeming really good too,” Mazzarella said. “What we hope to accomplish during the actual play is really just for everything to run smoothly and not have any setbacks during it.”
However, there weren’t just difficulties with the flying, but some of the aspects of the play in general, even with all of this help. “Some of the difficulties of putting on an Ariel production were how we needed to make some of the characters seem they were realistically swimming in the air, but that is where the flying came in handy, and also, it’s kind of hard to capture a musical under the sea at times as well,” Higgins said.
To help avoid any setbacks or just make the best performance possible for the nights of the production, Higgins said, “We tried our best while rehearsing each of our roles and scenes, and when we messed up, we just kept supporting each other and just kept rehearsing it again to perfect our performance.”
Mustakos believes that a lot of things have been successful during rehearsals and preparation, and that everyone seems to be in a good position so far. “Right now, we are ready for the show and just need to refine scene changes, costume changes, and technical issues. What we need now is an audience to perform for,” Mustakos said.
