Mitchell Schools stage Dr. Seuss
“The show must go on” is a classic theatrical motto conveying that, whatever problems or disasters a troupe confronts, the curtain will rise when it’s scheduled. Angie Holtzclaw, Mitchell High School’s drama teacher and theater director, has been forced to repeat this motto to herself lately while rehearsing “Seussical Jr., playing at 7 p.m., March 5-7 at the Mitchell High School Stage (tickets $5).
Taking on a musical with 23 student actors (many of whom have never appeared on stage before), representing multiple local schools with different schedules, demands complex planning to meet the production’s opening night. But then there are snow and ice storms that close the schools for days, followed by outbreaks of COVID and flu, which sweep through both cast and crew.
“Oh, I’m exhausted,” Holtzclaw smilingly admitted. “But, somehow, everything always works out. I’m not sure how, but it does.”
“Seussical Jr.” is the one-act version of the Broadway musical Seussical, which was inspired by Dr. Seuss’ books. A resounding financial flop in 2000 when it premiered in New York, time and editing finally created a popular hit. The shortened version that Holtzclaw is directing was specially designed by the show’s creators for school productions.
The Cat in the Hat, Yertle the Turtle, Horton the Elephant, and the Whos of Whoville are being brought to life with students from Mitchell County’s elementary, middle, and high schools, as well as from Mayland’s Early College program.
After the many conflicts and delays she dealt with, Holtzclaw opened her first technical run-through to parents and the press last Saturday. She and her music director, Kaitlyn Greene, shepherded the actors through the play’s action and songs, while the student tech crew, Mary Grace Davis and Noella McClellan, had the chance to piece everything together with the right lighting and sound. There were some stumbles that Holtzclaw was prepared for, but she was happily surprised by the outcome.
“We’ve got some work,” she said. “But this was good.”
The imaginative set, with its terrain of Seuss’ Truffula trees, reimagined by art instructor and local artist Melisa Cadell, serves as backdrop to the action, which is primarily a mash-up of “Horton Hatches the Egg” and “Horton Hears a Who!”
Horton (played by Mayland Early College sophomore Matthew Taylor) is simultaneously trying to save the tiny Whos while attempting to hatch an egg handed him by the hardly maternal Mayzie LaBird (played by Mitchell High sophomore Kaitlyn Sillman). The Cat in the Hat played by seventh-grader Riley Carver), serves as an emcee to the story, with Carver performing several quick changes into ever more elaborate jackets. The rest of the large student cast populates the stage with their own Seussian eccentricities.
“Seussical Jr.” coincides with the National Education Association’s annual “Read Across America,” which was launched to celebrate the work of Theodor Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss).
“Is there any better way to celebrate the week, than to take books off the page and onto the stage?” Holtzclaw asked. “I think it fosters both literacy and playful imaginativeness.”