This year’s spring musical was Les Miserables, school edition. Performed on Feb. 26, 27, 28, Mar. 5, 6, 7 at 7:00 p.m. and Mar. 1 at 1:30 p.m. Many students, staff and community members got the chance to watch the musical. The musical was all sung, which could be hard to understand if you didn’t know Les Miserable before going.

The show was Directed by Erik Eitrheim,Technical Direction by Doc Gauberger, Musical Direction and Choreography by Paula Asmus, Pit Direction by Pete Guenther, Lighting Design by Dylan Weese and Costume Design by Bestsy Cole.   

Asmus shares about her role and job in the musical, “Essentically all of the singing and then I work with Mr. Guether on how we combine all of that. For choreography means all of the dancing.” 

Everyone in the musical had an important role to make the production happen. The entire cast has been working extremely hard and they are very proud of their work when it comes to opening night to share their work. This production was more geared towards adults; it isn’t the most easy and fun to watch for kids. 

Senior, Isabella Nelson who played Cosette states, “We didn’t sell out which kind of sucks, but overall I feel like each night there was a pretty good audience.” When talking about musical attendance.  

Logan Halverson an senior at OHS who played Valjean said, “Open tonight I had a lot of nerves and then as we got progressively more used to it I’d say things smell it out a lot more and people got used to like the roles and who they were on stage and it turned less into a nerve-wracking experience and more into fun everyone’s enjoying what they’re doing kind of thing.” 

After closing night almost every actor you could see tears streaming down on their face, especially the seniors, as they’re closing their last musical or play production they will ever be in. There were some people that really showed their character through the musical which many people enjoy and the audience loves to see how much they’re similar to their character.  

“I think when we got to closing night there was definitely an element of people just feeling more relaxed and more confident.” Asmus shares. 

From opening to closing night parents, friends and family were able to experience students embracing their character and loving what they’re doing. The musical may have been long; it was two hours and 45 minutes but the actors and the audience loved every minute of it. 

When being asked about how Halverson is able to get into the role of Jean Valjean he states that, “I had to act the tad bit older and want to take care of everyone, putting others before myself” 

“It’s a show few schools have ever had the opportunity to tackle and we have a lot of talent, the students did really well, I could not be more proud.” Asmus also said. 

Asmus is also able to explain how many of the actors were able to have humility and learn a lot through the process and states “They did everything with a lot of intention and the amount of hours that students put in outside of rehearsal, amazed me.”

There were many challenges when putting on such a big production like Les MIserables. There were small mistakes after every performance, but they were able to correct and improve them and learn from them. 

Nelson states that “We had a lot of sickness going around one of the weeks though which made it hard to just sing.” when sharing the hardest part of this musical. 

This year the high school musical Les Miserable got an honorable mention from spotlight meaning the cast gets to go to the state showcase (spotlight). The cast will go and join other Minnesota high schools performing at the Showcase, giving students a chance to experience professional level theater, and getting feedback for their performance. 

If you would like to see the next production the OHS theater department will put together. The Spring Play will be on Apr. 30, May 1, 2 at 7:00 p.m. and May 3 at 1:30 p.m. The Spring Play will cost five dollars for students and eight dollars for adults. The OHS One Act Festival the dates are still to be determined at 7:00 p.m. with free admission. Make sure to go support your fellow classmates or community members!