By On Thursday, Sept. 21, the Carroll College Theatre performed its first production of the year, The Lightning Thief, The Percy Jackson Musical.
Showings began on Sept. 21 and ended on Oct. 8 with rousing success. The run time for the shows was 2 hours and 30 minutes, including an intermission.
“The Lightning Thief was really good,” said Julia Powell, a freshman business management and marketing major from Fairbanks, Alaska. “You can tell that there was a lot of work put into the musical. Everyone performed well and was super entertaining. I think they all did a really good job portraying each of their characters. It was also cool how they interacted with the audience in the splash zone.”
Not only did those who attended the play enjoy the production, but the actors did as well.
“I had a great time working on this production,” said Skylar Shields, a Helena native currently working at St. Peters. “We worked long and hard together, but it turned out to be a wonderful experience for me.”
“The atmosphere of this show was a bit of a rollercoaster,” added Lily Hoelscher, a fifth-year senior theatre and Spanish major from Baker City, Oregon. “We had a very condensed period of time in which to pull everything together, so often during rehearsal emotions and stress ran high.”
Shields played Grover Underwood and also commented on the tone of the production.
“The general atmosphere was one of hard work, and support,” said Shields. “The cast stood in solidarity with each other and was plain funny. One of my favorite casts to work with.”
Hoelscher, who played Mr. D, Chiron Swing, and Mr. Brunner, shed some light on the struggles of the play.
“This show was a challenge in many ways for me, as both an actor and a student/RA, as I figured out how to balance my various commitments,” said Hoelscher. “But it was an excellent opportunity to expand my confidence in a leadership role among the cast, especially since this is my last year at Carroll and I wanted to ensure that the newer theatre students had a good experience.
“We had a lot of fun together as a cast. It was an opportunity to strengthen the friendships I had already built in previous years, and I also have new people in my life now that I’m very close to that I wouldn’t have met otherwise, so I am particularly grateful for all of that. There were a lot of tears shed on our closing day when we all realized it was the last time we would be together like that.”
Not only was the overall atmosphere of the performance a success, but the actors thoroughly enjoyed the characters they played as well.
“I was personally surprised to get the role I got,” said Shields about getting the part of Grover. “I expected to get a smaller role or play in the ensemble, and I would have been perfectly happy doing that. But this role turned into something very special to me. I related to the character in a way I hadn’t with other roles, and the experience working with the cast and production team was better than I could have imagined. It was something different than I had done in other productions and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.”
With The Lightning Thief, The Percy Jackson Musical now done, the theatre program will be performing She Persisted in the Flex theatre on Nov. 13-16.
