The Morgan musical is always one of the most anticipated parts of the winter season at The Morgan School, but many students and the community of Clinton are unaware of the current crisis for the future of the Morgan Musical. All three teachers who help out with the musical are not returning to help with the next musical.
Media teacher Shannon Robinson teaches Freshmen Experience, Husky Leadership, and Yearbook at Morgan, but two years ago also agreed to take on directing the Morgan Musical, after John Lampe, the previous director, had decided to retire and move to south carolina to be able to spend more time with her husband and family.
Robinson dedicated much of her time to both Morgan Musicals, even creating costumes in the Learning Commons during her free periods. “I can’t really say what’s going to happen after I leave because I don’t know. All I can hope for is that somebody with the same amount of passion and dedication that I had for it takes it on, so that we continue to grow what we had. It’s been really great to see how many people came out to be a part of it the past two years, and that is something that I’d want to see continue on for years after this,” Robinson shared.
Chorus teacher Leila Mustakos has been splitting her time between working at Jared Eliot Middle School and The Morgan School for a long time, and along with that, she has been dedicating her very little free time to helping out with The Morgan Musical. Her role in the production of The Morgan Musical has been in charge of teaching the songs to the leads and chorus and hosting voice lessons for those in need. However, Mustakos has finally decided her journey is coming to an end.
Mustakos is staying in Connecticut but decided to retire from teaching at Morgan due to the rapid growth in the music programs at Morgan, and the amount of after-school time it would require to continue the growth. “We do regionals, we do all state, we do extra, smaller things, we do the musical. And between that, and the other classes I teach here, so I teach Chorus, and then I teach electives, and then I teach over at Eliot, it leaves me no time for anything else in my life for family.”
Mustakos shared what kind of person she would want to take over her position when she leaves, and, similar to Robinson, she said she would want someone with dedication and experience. “I hope that we find a person who has a couple of years of teaching, who wants to get into a high school program, maybe coming up from a middle school, so that they have some knowledge of what they’re doing. It needs to be someone who can handle not just choral music, but general music, because I do general music with the fifth and sixth graders, and then I also do general music classes with high school students. So you’re dealing with 10-year-olds all the way through 18-year-olds,” Mustakos remarked.
Mustakos, however, does believe that she is leaving the chorus program in an ideal state.“They’re ready to really take off. They’ve got great skills and great self-discipline, and the classes run really smoothly, and I got great leaders, especially in the junior class. There are some really strong leaders coming up next year.”
Mustakos and Robinson had worked closely together to create the production of the Morgan Musical. Although Robinson was the director, she claims that “it is a skill that I don’t have,” and it is part of the reason Mustakos and her worked so closely together. “Maybe in the future, they’ll find somebody who has a music background and is interested in it, and then they’ll be able to handle both sides of it. But for me, I needed somebody who had the skills and the ability to understand the music and what needed to be accomplished for that. because that is not a highlight of mine,” Robinson said.
Despite the departure of two dedicated leaders, the future of the Morgan Musical remains full of possibilities. The program will enter a new future with a talented chorus and new rising talented students, while finding the right musical director and chorus doctor may be hard, but it will happen.
