January 12, 2005
West stages 'Aida' this spring
March musical tests singing and dancing talents of students
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Thursday afternoon, the stage at Traverse City West Senior High School's auditorium got a taste of the school's upcoming musical "Aida" as dozens of dancers ran through an audition.
Casting the chorus for the recently released Disney production, which wound up a wildly popular Broadway run this fall, was the final step before intensive rehearsals began. Earlier in the week, Larimer had auditioned singing members of the chorus for the show, which will run for eight performances in March.
By Friday afternoon, director Pat Gallagher and choral director Russ Larimer had the final casts running through the complete production.
"We did a full run-through of the show and we have a nice jump-start," said Larimer, noting that he chose the leads for the show in October. "It was amazing."
The chorus will include numerous male dancers, many of them veterans of last year's production of "West Side Story". Then a months-long musical theater class taught by choreographer Erin Peck brought many non-dancing singers - both boys and girls - up to speed on the complex numbers. The juniors and seniors in the cast can draw on the skills they learned in that class.
At West, not only is singing cool for guys, but dancing as well.
"It's really fun, I love the dancing part," said Tony Thompson, an 11th grade student at the school who was in 'West Side Story'. "I play football and the dancing goes with the footwork."
Thompson is a member of the school's chorale program and also takes private voice lessons. He and the other cast members look forward to the intense winter months of the annual musical production.
"You spend a lot of time, right after school, for a long time," he said. "You all spend a lot of time together and get to know the people really well."
Larimer said that the school began emphasizing its dance program three years ago, allowing them to stage some classic dance musicals.
"We've really been trying to step up our fine arts offerings between band, orchestra, choir and dance," he noted. "Trying to make it all part of the West package."
"For dance, boy, the kids are there, we've certainly got great dancers and it just enhances our abilities to offer great musicals," Larimer added.
While leading his singers through an intense and challenging program every year, Larimer also encourages them to add to their personal repertoires by learning to dance. He also tries to motivate the experienced dancers - some of the girls have been dancing for a decade and perform in companies in town - to learn to sing.
"It's the triple threat situation: don't just work on your acting or dancing, but work on singing," Larimer said. "It seems to be that the dancers are really hesitant about it [singing] but they shouldn't be because in the artistic area, it's like changing from flute to saxophone."
"A lot of the time they can gain the skills into the next area without as much difficulty as they think it might take," he added.
Many of the students were already familiar with "Aida" because Larimer took a group of them to see the show downstate in August. This was more than a month before he learned that they could stage the show this March, but he wanted as many students as possible to see it.
"We told everybody it's going to cost 50 bucks to go see it between the ticket and the bus ticket," he recalled. "If it works out, it works out, and if it doesn't then you got to see a nice show. We heard we got it in late September."
"Aida" will open on Thursday, March 10, at 7:30 p.m. at the West Senior High School Auditorium. Other evening shows will be held on March 11, 12 and 17-19; afternoon matinees at 2 p.m. will be held on March 13 and 20. Tickets will be available beginning in mid February.