This year, middle school students will be in the Freedom High School Musical, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” We will perform on Feb. 28, March 1, and March 2 in the High School auditorium.
“We like to take a look at the students who auditioned for the year for the High School and then we choose a show that fits our students well, so instead of picking a show and trying to make people fit into it, we see what talent we have and try to base the show around it,” Mrs. Heather Giammaria, High School Musical director, said.
Mrs. Giammaria is looking forward this year to all of the new memories she and her students will be making. She loves working with the middle schoolers but said it’s a lot harder to manage with so many people. Mrs. Giammaria loves the excitement and energy of us middle schoolers most.
“We don’t always try to choose shows middle schoolers could participate in, but we always keep it in the back of our minds that there are certain shows that fit opening it up to middle schoolers better and I think that Mrs. Evans and I believe that it’s a lot of fun to have you guys here with us, so we try to keep it in mind,” she said. Mrs. Giammaria says that the number of participants is increasing by a lot. She has been working as a musical director for four years. Some other people who help out with the musical are Mrs. Evans, the producer, and Mr. Dickey, the set designer. Mrs. Giammaria said Middle schoolers have been able to participate in the High School Musical for all four years that she has worked here.
Addison Hilliard is a 5th grader Freedom Area Middle School and a participant in the high school’s musical this year. It is her first year in middle school and the musical. Hilliard expects that the musical will be a lot of work but a lot of fun at the same time. She is very excited for the musical this year.
“I’m mostly looking forward to bonding with new people, learning how to do all of our acts, and our talking parts, maybe our singing parts, it’s just very exciting,” said Hilliard. Hilliard wants to be an ompaloompa with maybe a small speaking part. Her favorite musical is the new movie “Wonka”, which is a prequel to the story of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” loves to perform. She says she used to be a dancer, and has experience on stage, but not in a musical performance.
With so much excitement around the upcoming musical, it is bound to be an amazing experience for not only the students participating, but the audience too.
