Helias is ready for a rumble at its production of West Side Story this weekend.
Tony, Maria and other fan favorites will be making their debut Friday as Helias premieres its spring musical.
West Side Story runs Friday through Sunday at the Miller Performing Arts Center, with Friday and Saturday's shows starting at 7 p.m. and Sunday's show at 2 p.m.
West Side Story follows the forbidden romance between Tony and Maria set against the backdrop of 1950s New York. Some of the popular songs include "Somewhere," "Tonight" and "I Feel Pretty."
This production has served as more than just a fun show for the students to perform. With difficult themes such as racism at its core, director Amy Pringer has worked hard to ensure that the students learn the "why" behind many of the scenes in the story while staying true to the original story.
"It actually has been one of the harder shows I have ever done," Pringer said. "Those classical musicals, not only are the scores more intricate, but the characterizations have a lot more depth. So with high schoolers, teaching them how to tap into a character and their motivations takes a little longer."
The racism themes have caused a lot of questions among the students regarding how they were going to address the themes and correctly portray the characters.
"We don't have all the representative ethnicities, so we've talked about that," Pringer said. "How it is acting but it is a story that still needs to be told. So that takes a little longer.
"It's been important to make sure the kids understand the motivations behind why they're acting the way they are, even if it's against their own very Christian natures."
Pringer added they have dialed back some of the derogatory terms in the show.
"The theme of it is more of how you say something still implies a derogatory nature, not necessarily what you say, even though what you say is just as important," Pringer said.
Some of the cast members include Alli Echelmeyer as Maria, Jonah Lanigan as Tony, Lainey Hood as Anita, Jack Callahan as Riff and Deven Crisostomo as Bernardo.
For senior Jonah Lanigan, playing Tony in West Side Story will be his fourth play at Helias.
"The show's starting to come together, it's really awesome to see," Lanigan said.
One of the stage managers, Lily Delk, said the toughest part so far has been figuring out where all the parts of the set and props go to make it seem realistic and logical on stage.
"I've really been enjoying seeing everything unfold and being able to see all the scenes improve," Delk said. "And with the props and everything, it really comes to life once we get everything set up."
Enzo Lenart, another stage manager, said the community feeling of musicals is what draws him to it the most.
"We always have a really good time, but we're also working hard and making sure that everything that we need to get done, gets done," Lenart said. "So it's a really good contrast between having fun but also getting all your work done."
Delk and other students agreed that student night is one of the parts they're most looking forward to, when they get to perform in front of many of their peers.
"I think seeing their peers do something that they're not usually seeing them do is fun," Delk said. "Like you get to see your friends sing and dance. And every year it's so different so it's really cool to see."
Claire Ashly, who is in charge of the lighting for the show, said she is currently working on setting up lighting for the more difficult scenes.
"We have some split scenes between the Sharks and the Jets, so I'm trying to split the stage evenly so I'm just working on the colors of everyone right now," Ashly said.
Ashly is most excited for people to see the "rowdier" scenes that involve splitting the lighting of the stage in two, with red on one side and blue on the other.
A theater design class at Helias that builds all the sets for the productions serves as a connection between different groups of people at the school through the community process of putting on a production, according to the production manager Ron Vossen.
"So there's another 30-35 students involved that are not backstage or anything but that have put in a lot of work in doing the sets and everything," Vossen said.
He added, "I think Enzo was talking about the community of it, both cast and crew, everybody just comes together to make sure the show is going to be its utmost best. And so that's one of the coolest things about working with all the students."
The crew is made up of more than 20 students for this production, which is about average for Helias.
"Helias is lucky. They always have a fantastic turnout for auditions. It's usually in the range of about 50-60 kids," Pringer said of the 46-person cast.
The late 1950s, early 1960s period costumes were created by Missy Newberry.
"Our costumer, Missy Newberry, is incredible," Pringer said.
She added, "We're going to make sure the makeup is dialed back and it's not too garish because more makeup usually ends up like 70s, 80s, 90s, but back then it was very understated."
Vossen shared that on the alumni night, they will be welcoming back cast members from the West Side Story productions Helias produced in the 1960s and 1970s.
"We did West Side Story in 1968 and in 1975, so we invited back the cast and crew of those productions and they will be here on Saturday evening for the production this year as alumni guests," Vossen said.
Added Pringer: "These kids are working very hard. Not only do they have heavy school loads, many of them are in activities, concerts, one of them is working on a mellophone for a very competitive national group. It's insane what these kids have and then they come here and give me their heart and souls on stage and I love seeing that."
For tickets, call 573-635-6139.
Helias High School's production of the West Side Story. (Shaun Zimmerman / News Tribune photo)
Helias High School's production of the West Side Story. (Shaun Zimmerman / News Tribune photo)