The art of drama and stage production is highly valued all around the world. It is the perfect medium to display stories, emotions, and craftsmanship. Although its adaptations include cinema in many cases, it remains a beloved amusement of rich and poor alike. Due to this, Southside itself is one of the many schools with a theater program. Every year they put on either a play or a musical with talented singers, actors, dancers, set designers, and more. This year’s chosen production is Oklahoma– a classic musical that has been performed live and in movies alike.

“In the spring of every year, we open an anonymous suggestion box for anyone to make suggestions for the following year’s musical. Then, we convene a student panel of two students from each grade level to sort through the suggestions and narrow it down to a top four. Once we have our top four, the students do a significant amount of research on each show, forming opinions on which one we believe will be best for the coming school year. Last year, the students believed that Oklahoma was the way to go, so here we are!” teacher and director of the Southside theatre Amy Pumphrey said about the choice of the musical. 

Non-theater students aren’t left out of auditions either. Any student is allowed to try out for the production that is chosen in the previous school year. 

“Typically, we open a Schoology Group a few weeks in advance that holds all the information necessary for students to sign up for audition time slots, fill out the audition form, and access the scenes and songs we’ve pulled for the musical auditions. We have students audition in groups of ten with the pre-selected material,” Pumphrey said about the audition process. After this, she and a production team come together to decide both callbacks and roles for students. This process has already taken place for this year and the cast is currently in rehearsals.

The cast and crew of Southside’s Oklahoma production have put in an immense amount of work and deserve recognition. Save one of the three performance dates in your calendars to show up and support them! Shows will take place on November 18, 19, and 20. Amy Pumphrey and her team are working to find a location, so stay tuned for updates regarding these performances.