By Callie Honeycutt, Social Media Editor

Two hours on the stage. Three performances in front of a packed house. StageKraft actors and technical theater crew working their way through 15 songs. They’re “All in This Together.” 

After not having the chance to put on a musical at all last year – plus having the onset of the pandemic cancel “Chicago” after months of preparation – co-directors Lauren Deal, Monica Penn, John Buford and Le Hook are back with their crew and ready to put on a show. 

“We couldn’t do either show last year and ‘Chicago’ was canceled in 2020 one week before opening night, so this is really special to us,” Deal said. “We’re excited to finally get on stage and perform for an audience again.”

While the FFHS theater department usually does a fall play and then a spring musical, Deal and her co-directors had to find the best way to put on a show this year. “All Together Now” features 15 songs that audience members will recognize and enjoy.

“The company was offering this show without having to pay rights or royalties, so this is what we went with in hopes of saving some of the money we lost when we weren’t able to do ‘Chicago,’ ” Deal said. 

With conflicting schedules a factor, multiple teachers and staff members have gotten involved with the musical to help make sure it’s something that can still happen this year. That includes a helping hand from Hook even though he is best known around the school for being a favorite substitute teacher.

“This year I am working full time, so I am here every day now and I was asked to serve as a temporary director because of some health problems with the staff and I agreed to do that,” Hook said. “So here I am!”

Hook has a wide range of experience from producing many different shows over his teaching and professional career, so he’s proven to be a great candidate for helping with the musical this fall. 

“All together, I have taught high school for 15 years in three different states. This involved directing or technical direction of about 30-plus productions, including several musicals. I also built the scenery for over 400 regional theater productions in North Carolina, Virginia, Oregon and Alabama,” Hook said.

Having anyone and everyone pitch in for “All Together Now” was more important than ever for students who have missed the opportunity to perform because of COVID-19. 

“If you were to be in every show from freshman to senior year, you’d have done eight by the time you’d graduated, with one play in the fall and a musical in the spring each year usually,” senior Loxley Wayland said. “I will have only done five shows by the time I graduate, six if you count ‘Chicago,’ but we never got to perform it for an audience as lockdown happened the week before our opening night.” 

With a show this big, there is a lot of preparing and practice that goes into it. 

“There’s a lot of work that goes into making a show that happens behind the scenes, including designing and building the sets, making props, selecting costumes and so much more that the tech crew does,” Wayland said.

Directing and acting on stage is not the only way students participate in the musical. There are a variety of people working on costumes, props, the set, sound, microphones, lights, spotlights, backstage running crew and choreography. 

“I am helping choreograph the musical because I did it my freshman year and they needed help choreographing a dance back then, so I helped and it was really fun,” senior Hannah Montgomery said. “I have done it every year since.”

Losing a year to do a show means most students want to participate in any way they can. 

“I wasn’t able to do the actual musical this year, so I thought I would just choreograph it instead,”  Montgomery said. 

Each and every role is vital in a show such as this. 

“They learn the song first, and then I give them tools, tips, and coach them along in making the song come alive through them,” Buford said. 

With the show being a mix of songs from multiple time periods, the performance is sure to bring back fond memories for everyone when the curtain goes up Nov. 12-14. 

“I can’t not do ‘High School Musical’ without thinking of when I taught these kids in middle school, so this stirs up those kinds of memories for me,” Buford said. 

Senior Callie Honeycutt can be reached at 22honeycuttca54@daretolearn.org.