The Winter Musical is an annual show from the Darlington Art Department. This year the musical “Chicago-Teen Edition” was presented in the Rome City Auditorium from Feb 23-25, including three shows. Around 36 Darlington students participated.

“Chicago has always been a bucket list show for me that I have always wanted to direct my whole career,” Director Shelley Daniel said. “When the teen-edited version came out that was very exciting because I knew that would offer me the opportunity to direct it on a high school level.”

Choosing the right shows is a significant decision that Daniel takes very seriously.

“Every summer I try to put together a season that is relevant to what is going on in the world and also tailored to the students that I have coming up the next year and I selected Chicago and Twelve Angry Jurors to be bookings of each other,” Daniel said. “They both approach the same topic from different perspectives and so it just felt like a nice way for my students to look at the issues that were presented in both plays from a different vantage point that would hopefully build wisdom.” 

Ms. Daniel has worked at Darlington since 2015. In those years she has gained more and more experience. 

“Just having the opportunity to direct one of the longest-running musicals in American history was profound. It was probably the most difficult show I have ever directed so for me as an artist it was exciting to have that challenge,” Daniel said. “Designing costumes from the 20s was one of my favorite things and then seeing them on my actors was incredible. The songs are so catchy…and knowing that the students and the community were so excited about it too was also really gratifying.” 

The participants also had their personal favorite moments.

 “I would say my favorite part was when we finally put it up on stage, singing all the songs and seeing everybody’s reactions to the performance,” senior Seidy Pichardo said. “People were really happy and excited about it.”

Friday night was the opening night. Buses were provided for boarding students to come out, but also many parents and faculty members came to see the performances. 

“I think the very first moment on Friday night when we went from an audience blackout to the curtains opening and it was just the Chicago sign lit up and the audience started applauding before the show ever began was when I knew something special was about to happen,” Daniel said. “Sitting up in the booth and watching my actors perform is always incredible for me as a director but, I’ll be honest, one of my favorite things to do is to watch their parents. For me as a mom and as the director having that moment where I see how proud my students’ family, friends and colleagues are of the work they are doing on stage is pretty awesome.”

All participants have rehearsed the show regularly over the past few months.

“We begin rehearsing in November. Students generally rehearse Monday through Friday from 3:30 to 6 p.m. until we get to tech week and that is when we begin working long hours at night and over the weekends,” Daniel said. “They had to do choreography rehearsal, acting rehearsal and singing rehearsals so there were a lot of pieces of the puzzle that they were responsible for and they worked really hard.”

 The last step of the preparations is the so-called “tech week” which is the week before the performance weekend and the show is being finalized. 

“During tech week I had several small moments when I could really talk to my friends and the people I was working with,” Pichardo said. “There were calm moments and I had the opportunity to really get to know them on a deeper level. I had some good conversations and theater definitely connects people.”

This year’s Darlington theme is community. The theater has fulfilled this theme in several ways.

 “I think we all work really well together and I became friends with many of them. We take it seriously but we also know when to have fun,” Pichardo said. “I had a lot of friends who helped me memorize my lines. I’m a Thornwood leader and during my duty nights, people helped me memorize lines.”

Junior Moa Berglund also believed that theater has brought Darlington students together.

“In my opinion the entire theater group is one big friend group, it is really nice,” Berglund said. “If there is a new person we all get to know them and they become part of our community.”

Besides 24 actors, the show included seven crew members and five students in leadership positions. 

“For the musical, the backstage roles differ a bit from the fall play but we usually have two state managers, which was me and Xiya Burton and there is the company manager which was Kimberly Johnston,” Berglund said. “We originally had it divided up into costume crew and stage crew but in the end, we decided to group everyone together since everyone liked doing all different parts of it.”

The backstage team remains largely unrecognized but is no less important to the success of the show.

“I believe the backstage team is really important. We make sure the actors get through all of their scenes easier, whether it is a quick change or not,” Berglund said. “Finding their props and making sure they have the correct one is a big part of the show.”

Even though the show was an overall success there were also some difficulties. 

“Having the endurance to keep going was definitely the hardest part for me because I got sick so often. In the entire process, I got sick around three times and it knocked me out,” Pichardo said. “Continuing to go after you’re so tired was difficult but it was worth it in the end.’

Another aspect was the many things the backstage team had to prepare. Besides the general costumes the show included many different accessories.

“We left a few things for last minute,” Berglund said. “The newspapers the actors held in their hands during the headline scene ‘Roxie rocks Chicago’ were finished the day of the first show because we had to do other stuff during tech week. Getting everything ready was difficult.”

‘Roxie’ was the main character of the musical and was played by Seidy Pichardo.

“The character I played last year was scary, silly and overall meant to be funny, but I think Roxie is a really hard character to love,” Pichardo said. “I mean, she is crazy and very evil, but I still liked her because I don’t think it was ever on purpose and it was fun to pretend to be super naive when everyone underestimates you. I liked that part about it.”

Eleven seniors participated in this year’s Winter Musical. The Art Department looks forward to supporting students in becoming part of the theater in the next few years. 

“I would of course recommend you to participate in theater! I would say you should do it because it gives you something else to do and you learn more about art and yourself,” Pichardo said. “Depending on what role you get there is a different amount of time and care you can put into things. There is a good bit of rest time but it’s just really fun being able to experience it and see something come to life with a bunch of people.” 

There are many different options for how students can get involved in theater. 

“Theater at Darlington involves a fall play ASA that is produced in the Black Box. We have a winter musical ASA that is produced in the Rome City Auditorium. We offer a stagecraft class and some years we offer a Theater Performance Class,” Daniel said. “We also have a Cinema Class that kind of falls under the theater umbrella. We have the Darlington Players which is our club and they are members of the International Thespian Society.”

This year’s theater journey ended on Sunday afternoon. For many participants it was one of the saddest moments.

“Closing night was definitely the most special moment for me. There are a lot of seniors I’m sad to see go and it was emotional to say goodbye,” Berglund said.

It takes many different steps to put together a show like this. Ms. Daniel looks back with a lot of gratitude and pride.

“The biggest thing I want to say is that I’m so proud of all of my students,” Daniel said. “We had great numbers at all of our shows and I want to thank the community for coming out and supporting us and for supporting the administration. They were behind us from day one. There are a lot of people to thank that got us to where we are.”