Hoover High School Presents the Musical “13”
It’s THAT time of the year: In the next two weeks four DMPS high school drama departments will stage their fall musicals. Coming up next week are Hoover’s production of 13 and North’s production of Peter Pan. East and Roosevelt will follow the next weekend with Beauty & the Beast and SHREK: The Musical, respectively. This is the first in a series of previews:
Hoover High School presents the musical “13” on November 5-7.
Opening night for Hoover High School’s production of the musical “13” isn’t until next Thursday, November 5th. But Friday morning a sneak preview performance of Act I was staged for what amounted to an audience full of potentially harsh critics. The storyline deals with some of the timeless tribulations and pitfalls of adolescence (the title is an age reference) and Hoover’s auditorium was filled by the student body from next door neighbor Meredith Middle School. So there were lots of 13 year-olds in the house. There are even a handful of them in the cast.
Here’s the show in a nutshell: Evan Goldman is about to become a teenager and he can’t wait. Then his life starts collapsing. His parents get divorced, and he moves with his mom from metropolitan New York to rural Indiana. If Evan can’t get the popular kids to come to his bar mitzvah, he’s doomed. As he navigates the social minefield of cool kids and nerds, jocks and cheerleaders, first kisses and heartbreak, he comes to understand “What it Means to be a Friend.”
There can’t be any thespian feat more daunting than a 6:45 AM cast/crew call for an 8:15 AM curtain time. But the 60 students collaborating on 13 pulled it off with aplomb. Most of them are veteran teens now but crossed the promising, perilous bridge that is the age of 13 recently enough that they could channel it first thing this morning. Adolescent angst never sounded more melodic or looked more choreographed. Hundreds of kids essentially laughing at themselves at all the right moments must have been as welcome to Hoover Drama Director Emily Griffin and her troupe as the frequent applause.
Griffin said that she likes her students to have input on the shows she selects and that was the case last spring when the Jason Robert Brown creation, the only one to ever play Broadway with a cast comprised entirely of teenagers, was chosen.
13 might be lost on elementary students who can’t yet appreciate what awaits them. But anyone middle school age or older will find something familiar in a story that’s as alternately desperate, funny, poignant, hopeless and hopeful as adolescence itself.
13 showtimes are November 5th, 6th and 7th at 7:00 PM in the Denis Hildreth Auditorium at Hoover. Tickets are $8 for adults, $6 for students and $4 for students with an SAT.
CAST
- Evan – Max Tensen
- Patrice – Linda Brown
- Brett – JC Collier
- Malcolm – John Martin Jr.
- Eddie – Kenny Tran
- Kendra – Maddy Sheets
- Archie – Ella Kreyling
- Lucy – Emma Burriola
- Cassie – Annika Baker
- Charlotte – Lexie Turner
- Molly – Lizzie Turner
- Richie – Alex Colby
- Simon – Brody Wheeler
- Rabbi – Jason Koromo
Kids/Rabbis Ensemble
- Maykala Carter-Shields
- Kristy Dang
- Anh Diep
- Alex Finch
- Ruby Halter
- Ubaidah Hassan
- Paw Htoo
- Destiny Jackson
- Callie McFarland
- Ripley Ann Miller
- Abdul Mokhtar
- Sabira Mokhtar
- Julieana Munoz
- Kale Nichols
- Celeste Ruggle
- Esther Ubadigbo
CREW
- Stage Manager – Sarah Ha
- Assistant Stage Managers – Lily Smith & Sabina Idriz
- Set & Scenic Paint Designer – Ella Kreyling
- Light Designer – Jenna Marler
- Lighting Apprentice – Thao Larson
- Sound Designer – Melanie Beckler
- Costume Designer – Maddy Sheets
- Props Mistress – Olivia Houchins-McCallum
- Hair & Makeup Designer – Emma Burriola
- Construction Forman – Alex Colby & Luke Leonard
- House Manager – Claudia Sbaffi
- Set & Paint Crew – Spencer Richards, Skylar Davis, Emma O’ Neal, Cynthia Le, Celeste Ruggle, Max Tensen, JC Collier
- Light Crew – Johnathan Le
- Costume Crew – Ashley Fletchall, Alanna Pettyjohn, Joe Huff, Izzy Owens
- Props Crew- Shadea James, Caleb Kinseth Peterson
- Hair & Makeup Crew – Annika Shilling, Lexie Turner, Nhu Nyugen, Anh Diep
