The Revere Players cast and crew have put on their annual spring musical. This years musical was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
The musical is an operetta featuring the music of English composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. This musical has received the title of operetta due to the cast members singing and dancing to twenty three different songs, with no spoken dialogue.
The particular musical the Players are performing is different from spring productions in the past. Director Laurie Russell explains the plot of this year’s musical and why she chose it.
“During Biblical times, Jacob has twelve sons, his favorite being Joseph. The other brothers become very jealous and sell Joseph to be a slave telling their father (Jacob) that he is dead. After the brothers hit hard times, they go to Joseph who is now rich and powerful to see if they can get help. All ends well with the brothers being reunited with their brother and he forgives them. The story is told through song and dance with alot of humor along the way. [Is is a] fun-loving show for a fun-loving group of students. Also, this show has a lot of male roles and we had a lot of boys interested in doing a musical this year,” Russell said.
Senior Eric Dye played the lead role of Joseph. Dye has participated in two other Players productions, working in the tech booth. He described his character in this upcoming musical.
“Joseph is the happy go-lucky brother, probably because he’s his dad’s (Jacob) favorite out of all the other 11. I’d say that Joseph tried his hardest to be friendly with his brothers, but ultimately comes off as arrogant, especially with his new coat, and that gets him into a lot of trouble,” Dye said.
Dye has been preparing for his role for months leading up to the performance. He explained how he went from mastering the tech booth to singing on stage.
“I’ve picked up a private vocal lesson here and there, [I spend] a lot of [time] thinking of the character and what I should do and how I should sing the parts. The show being entirely music is definitely intimidating, for a normal musical, to have parts of the show you can just act in, but this is full on the entire time, where you need to be on top of your game. It showed me that even though I haven’t been singing and acting in my life, I can accomplish a lot by working hard,” Dye said.
Junior Audrey Halvorson is a narrator. This will be her third players production. Halvorson commented on what she thinks about this musical.
“I think this one is a completely different style musically than what we’ve done in recent years. Joseph is my all time favorite musical so I was super excited when I found out that we were doing it. [My favorite memory has been] working with the orchestra for the first time and hearing all of the music come together,” Halvorson said.
Sophomore Bella Pignataro will be performing in the pit orchestra for the first time, and she will be playing the timpani and mallets. Pignataro has participated in other Players productions, rather than in the pit orchestra, she sang with the other Players on the stage. The Orchestra is a group of students and adults who provide the live music for the musicals. Pignataro explains the style of music this production will include.
“A lot of it is upbeat and percussion heavy, it is stylistically diverse and really groovy. [I enjoy] the fact that we play during the entirety of the show non stop and that there are so many different types of music.,” Pignataro said.
The musical took place on April 11, 12, 13, and 14.