dTHS is known for its incredible arts opportunities, including our renowned musical theater program led by our fearless and experienced director Raymond Saar.
From the perspective of an actress and makeup/hair artist, two seniors describe how much work goes into putting on this incredible show. From spending hours at school trying on different wigs to practicing lines to learning choreography, the work put into this show has required months of commitment and dedication.
Prowler editor Leah Berger, who plays Karen Smith in the Maroon Cast, has been spending her after-school hours in the Auditorium, preparing to star in her very first de Toledo production. Berger decided that she’d finally get involved in dTHS theater her senior year after spending the last three years on the dance team. At the beginning of high school, she decided that she’d quit her outside theater program to focus on her competitive dancing, she said. She has been welcomed “with open arms and she has only been cheered on by the cast” through the lengthy preparation process.
Playing a principal character has provided her with an opportunity to express herself in new and creative ways alongside new friends she has made in the program, Berger said.
Editor Alexis Gavin is a blossoming makeup and hair artist who has also joined the team this year. She said she is “beyond excited to style our many actors and actresses to fit the aesthetic of this complex and detailed production.” She has enjoyed deToledo’s many productions the performing arts program has put on, and she has always admired the tight-knit community within theater here at dTHS. Since she decided to join theater senior year, Gavin is ready to finally be a part of the production, something she’d wished for many years.
“With the new Mean Girls movie coming out on Jan. 12, we are so excited to be opening dTHS’s production of the movie on Jan. 25,” Gavin said. “It is such a modern production, and I think it’ll be one to remember.”
The high school nature of this musical will give students something to relate to, Berger and Gavin agree. This is what makes “Mean Girls” so special.
Based on a 2004 American teen comedy film written by Tina Fey, directed by Mark Waters and starring Lindsay Lohan, the new movie and musical production “is altered to fit our generation of comedy and wit, so it makes it more relatable to current teenagers in high school,” Gavin said.
