Oh, what a beautiful morning…. Oh, what a beautiful play…. There is a beautiful feeling everything’s going okay.

“Oklahoma!” is this year’s upcoming musical, and students are already hard at work perfecting their performances.

Practices have begun for both the actors and pit orchestra, and the tech crew is hard at work as well.

Rehearsals are usually every day after school, and they last for at least a couple hours. These rehearsals help the students prepare for the upcoming performances on Jan. 20-23. Much hard work goes into preparing for the performance. Part of the work is getting into character so that the audience will believe what they are seeing.

“To get into character for rehearsals, I allow myself to cool down from the rest of the day so that I can really focus on playing my part,” freshman and chorus member Claire Lisker said. “You have to make yourself believe that you are the character that you are playing, so that way you can react how your character would – in other words, acting naturally. You have to make the audience believe you as well.”

Senior John Holland, who plays Will Parker, does not have a routine to get into character, but he does prepare in certain ways for playing an overly energetic character.

“I have to convince myself to be extremely lively and ready to exert a lot of enthusiasm,” Holland said. “Will Parker’s role as a bit of the comic relief helps to take the time out of building a deep character and put time into making my lines as funny as they can be. I find it most rewarding when I am able to deliver a joke with perfect timing that allows for the most humor possible.”

Others, however, like senior Sarah McAfee, who plays the female lead character Laurey, do not have a special way of getting into character

“For me, once I start looking over my lines and getting into the scenes, the character just starts to come,” McAfee said. “On days when it doesn’t come, I just have to buckle down and try to really focus. Focus is really the biggest thing for me in terms of characterization.”

Freshman actor Ben Diamond, who plays Cord Elam, agreed with McAfee.

“I don’t do much to prepare during rehearsal,” Diamond said. “Usually, it’s something simple, like saying the lines over and over again in my mind while I’m fidgeting. However, I also like to reserve about 10 to 30 minutes to go over my lines at night before rehearsal the next day.”

“Oklahoma!” takes place on the prairie territory. Because of this, the actors must adopt a country twang to be convincing characters.

“It’s difficult to make to accent sound authentic,” McAfee said. “There’s still the same amount that goes into searching for character depth and trying to consider the plot and staging on a grander spectrum—the musical being the show we put on in the large theatre.”

The student actors always warm up before practice begins; it is an essential part of preparing for getting into character.

“You must warm up somehow,” Lisker said. “For singing, you warm up your voice and stretch your mouth. For dance, you warm up and stretch your body, and for acting you mostly relax your body and focus yourself into character. There are several specific warm up routines that we all know as a group that can prepare us for each thing. I find it really rewarding to be able to explore and express yourself through singing, dancing, and acting.”

In fact, dancing is a central focus of this play.

“The dancing portions are where the actors can really shine with a musical that is built around the music rather than the story,” Holland said.

Indeed, actors do not only prepare physically, but they also prepare mentally for their roles. As a matter of fact, according to McAfee, knowing one’s lines is also helpful.

“Preparing for acting is a lot of looking over your lines and making sure you know your blocking,” McAfee said. “It’s always nice to have your script out of your hand. I love the rehearsals when you have the script out of your hand and you know exactly what to do. Those are the times when you are really able to play with your character, and the magic really happens. Those are the rehearsals where the show starts becoming a real performance instead of just blocking scenes, and it is so cool to watch everybody grow.”

Theatre director Kelley Ryan believes that to create the best possible play, students should know their lines as soon as possible.

“The lines really should be the least of it,” Ryan said. “Kids should [be] off the book as soon as possible. We work on character relationships, rhythms, and making sure the story is clear. Hopefully, what will happen during performances is that everything will be so ingrained in each person’s mind that when they perform, they trust the rehearsal process, tell the story, and just relax and have fun.”

Diamond believes that Wydown productions are very different from high school productions due to the ways that high school students prepare.

“Rehearsing for plays at Wydown was different mainly because the [high school] actors are more mature, so we get more things done,” Diamond said. “Also, people look and sound good the first time they try a dance or set of lines, whereas at Wydown it was more that they really had to practice a lot to sound good. I think that comes from the kids at the high school being more independent.”

The tech crew is also hard at work creating sets. Director John Armstrong supervises the students at work.

“Generally, each crew member gives most of their focus and attention to a certain task at hand,” junior and tech crew member Matt Mikesic said. “As soon as a person finishes a job, he or she is assigned a new one. The process repeats itself each day until we have quality sets for the show. The average member, like me, does a little bit of everything and just gives help where it is needed. We get to add our own input and ideas that are often used during building the sets. What is really rewarding about the whole process is being able to watch the show and see all the props in use and knowing that I helped make the show more spectacular.”

“Oklahoma!” is very different from last year’s theater production, “Sweeney Todd.”

Not only do  the  accents  differ, but also the moods of  the  different musicals are also complete opposites.

“’Sweeney Todd’ was very music-intensive, but this show is not quite as much,” Ryan said. “This show a dance-heavy show, so there are more dance rehearsals. The students have five hours of dance rehearsals a week. They practice musical theatre dancing, stylized Broadway dancing, and a little ballet. There is also work on developing the country-twang accent. ‘Sweeney Todd’ deals with lots of drama and dark themes. This show is lighter. There is definitely some darkness, but it’s not as intense as ‘Sweeney Todd.’”

“’Sweeney Todd’ is a lot darker than ‘Oklahoma!’” McAfee said. “’Oklahoma!’ tends to be considered sort of a fluffy musical with not a lot of intense plot. That’s something we’re working on. We’re trying to get into the depth of the show to make it really realistic and heartfelt.”

The music of “Sweeney Todd” also is darker than the cheerful music of “Oklahoma!”

“’Sweeney Todd’ was a lot less straightforward musically,” junior flautist Taylor Kloha said. “With Sweeney, we tended to spend more time rehearsing the spots with sudden, bizarre time and key signature changes. It seems like ‘Oklahoma!’ is going to be more of a run-through-it-until-we’ve-got-it-down kind of situation. The two musicals are polar opposites. Both are well-known, successful musicals individually, but ‘Oklahoma!’ is much more cheery and upbeat. ‘Sweeney Todd’ was an amazing production, and “Oklahoma!’ should be outstanding as well.”

The reason for the cheerfulness is that “Oklahoma!” was first performed in the World War II era, when audiences wanted a light-hearted performance to escape from the reality of the war, contrasting with “Sweeney Todd.”

“Thus, ‘Oklahoma!’ is a funny and entertaining show that focuses more on song and dance,” Holland said. “’Sweeney Todd’ is, of course, Sondheim’s exploration of ideas of revenge and madness, which results in a very different, very dark show.”

McAfee acknowledges that the musical is not a modern one, but that this quality should not detract from the entertainment of the musical.

“’Oklahoma!’ was actually the first stage-performed musical in 1943,” McAfee said. “It is not modern at all. It was modern for its time, but there’s nothing twenty-first century about it at all. The songs are written in a classical musical style, and the setting is in 1906. It’s definitely different, but don’t let the idea that it’s old turn you off – it’s a lot of fun and really entertaining.”