“I hope the audience leaves the theater thinking hard about the ways in which we approach out-groups and minorities like immigrants, the differently abled, women, and the mentally ill. My hope is that they leave with more empathy and understanding for those who are ‘outcasts,’” says Mr. Sean Kelly, the Camas High School drama teacher and the director of CHS’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The CHS drama department just recently finished their run of this show, which amazed every audience that got to see it.
“Anyone who has done a show knows it’s incredibly hard work that takes discipline, commitment, and passion to do well at it. People in theatre develop critical thinking skills, problem-solving processes, social skills like empathy, patience, leadership, collaboration, aesthetic appreciation, literary understanding,” says Kelly. The entire cast and crew worked very hard to make this show as good as it possibly could be, in order to perform in front of audiences. They incorporated many new and exciting things into this show that they didn’t have in past years. These incorporations included a large motorized turntable, using prosthetics for the gargoyles, and implementing a kabuki drop.
Although, the cast and crew did run into a few obstacles before and during the run of the show. Their first big obstacle before the start of this run was the snow days, which pushed them behind quite a bit. Through adding more rehearsals and working even harder than before, the cast and crew got through this obstacle and created an amazing show.
Their second big obstacle occurred during the run of this show. During the second week of shows, a large portion of the cast and crew got sick with the flu. About 13 cast and crew members got sick that week, which ended up making it so they had to cancel the Thursday show of the closing weekend. That same weekend, on Friday, they were still missing a few cast members, but they were able to still have a show. They just had multiple cast members stand in for others that were sick. Even with this obstacle, the closing weekend shows were phenomenal, with audiences coming out of every performance amazed.
This show, with its amazing sets and costumes, and its beautiful score was set to amaze audiences. Which, it most definitely did. Emma Dean, a sophomore at CHS, comments, “Everyone was singing amazing. It was beautiful, sounded amazing, and everything looked great. The costumes were beautiful. The makeup was really good.” Audiences came out of every show astounded and amazed by the show that CHS had put together. Many people that came to see the show commented that it did not feel like a high school production. The cast and crew also thought that the run of this show went extremely well, even with all of the obstacles that they faced.
