Combine the Harry Potter books, humorous puns, musical numbers and a lot of magic, and you’ll get a product so great not even Professor Snape could’ve concocted it. One of the key parts to musical production, Harry Potter and the Totally Awesome Musical, that differs from the books is the large amount of humor that replaces the darker parts of the Harry Potter series.
“Harry Potter and the Totally Awesome Musical is more of a mashup of all of the books combined and is a humorous look at the books. For example, the bad guys in this one are Quirell and Voldemort; for those who have read the books, Voldemort is on the back of Quirell’s head, which we can’t do with special effects, so we have two people standing back to back, which is pretty ridiculous.    And that’s the point, is for it to be ridiculous. The entire thing is pretty cheesy, and so we’re embracing the cheese and making it as cheesy as possible, throwing in as many musical clichés and movie clichés as possible,” drama teacher Wendy King said.
Jokes seem to be sprinkled throughout the musical, according to some of the actors.
“Some of the humor is fun because you have to think about it so you know not everyone will get it, but other jokes everyone will understand,” senior Linda Foehrweiser said.
Considering the cast rehearses nearly every day, one would think the humor and ridiculous puns would get old after a while. But the countless jokes are what seem to keep the cast on their toes, according to senior Kelly Ma.
“Even if I didn’t know Harry Potter, I would like this production, because it is so funny. Even now when I’ve read to the script and rehearsed the show a thousand times, I still laugh at the jokes in it,” Ma said.
However, the Harry Potter musical won’t be put together by magic. No spells will be cast to ensure that everyone’s lines are memorized, the musical numbers are spot on, or to keep an actor from falling off the stage. All of that depends on the actors themselves, with hours of preparation under their belts and plenty of help from King.
“If I had to estimate, we have about 30 rehearsals. Each rehearsal is between two and four hours…But I think for the number of man hours, I would say each student prob-ably puts in between 50 and 150 hours for production,” King said.
These rehearsals occur almost every day after school in.
“The hardest part [of putting on the play] is probably all the long hours. Rehearsals usually start at 4:30 p.m. and go to about 8 p.m. Almost all of us have other activities, and there’s always homework, so it can definitely be a lot to deal with,” senior Max Pfeifer said.
“It’s not even just that you show up for four hours and read your lines. It’s that you show up for four hours and put your entire heart and soul and brain into acting, singing, and staging.
It’s a lot of work, but it’s the kind of work that you’re excited for,” Ma said.
The actors are certainly excited for this musical. Most of the actors are raving over the fact that they actually get to act as Harry Potter characters, considering most of them “grew up on the Harry Potter series”, as Pfeifer said.
The number of hours spent working as a team to put the musical together combined with this evident amount of excitement creates stronger bonds between the Harry Potter cast. Acting exercises, running chorus numbers, and experiencing the same falls and triumphs all allow these students to naturally get out of their comfort zones and become a family.
“One thing I love about the musical is that the cast has grown into a type of family. We are all there for the good days, the bad days, and every day in between,” said Hogan.
In the end, the amount of energy, cooperation, and hard work put into each of the rehearsals determines the outcome of the final performance.
“I really enjoy working with these students- a lot of them are really exciting about this particular production, a lot of them are really excited to finally make this happen, and their energy and excitement helps me going when I’m like, ‘Ugh, I’ve been here twelve hours, I’ve got like four more hours to go, when are we going to be done’. But their excitement really fuels me to keep me going, and we really help each other with that,” King said.