As the theater department prepares for the spring musical, The Addams Family Musical, a few freshmen are making the transition from middle school theater to high school. Freshmen Caelyn Rose and Noelle Rowton both got call-backs for The Addams Family Musical, and despite their similar school theater experiences, they both went to different middle schools. Both said that middle school theater is more chaotic and disorganized than high school theater. A good example of this is how people in high school try harder than the people in middle school because there’s a lot more competition. The props and equipment are also different, as the props in middle school are more handmade and aren’t of the best quality, and they also get reused frequently.
“In middle school, we reused everything, like if we had a tree in one show, it would be repainted,” Rose said.
The productions here are of better quality than the middle school, according to Rose, because there is more money and people that have more experience and enthusiasm to be involved in all parts of the process. There is also more excitement around high school productions, and lots of people attend the productions at West, unlike the middle school plays.
“West has a reputation of really, really good musical theater,” Rowton said. Because of that good reputation, sometimes there are adults that don’t have kids and still come to the production because they know that it’ll be of great quality.
Some experiences didn’t begin just with middle school. Rose has done theater in her everyday life and it helped her love theater even more and want to continue and widen her experiences in high school.
“I’ve grown up doing little plays in my bedroom with my family,” Rose said. ”It’s become a really big family thing.”
Theater brings so much happiness to people and they are so happy that they get the chance to experience it in high school. Theater is great that way, bringing joy to people who see the plays and who participate in the productions.
“[It is a] second home… a home away from home,” Rowton said.
A big difference between middle school and high school theater is that there’s more of a community in high school, according to Rowton and Rose. Everyone is so close to each other, and that makes the productions so amazing.
“Everybody’s so supportive and so sweet and so nice,” Rose said. Middle school theater and high school theater are very similar but a big difference is that high school theater is of better quality and middle school theater young and gets you in preparation for high school theater.
