The sounds of Broadway will descend upon Vicksburg over the next month as Vicksburg, Warren Central and St. Aloysius high schools perform their spring musicals.

Vicksburg and St. Al will bring Disney classics to the life as they perform Cinderella and Peter Pan, respectively. The cast at Warren Central will take the audience back in time to the 1960s with a performance of Hairspray.

Vicksburg High will take the stage first and perform Cinderella in the school’s auditorium Feb. 23 and 24 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $8 and can be purchased at the door or from any cast member.

“We have to find something that we have students we felt can fit the characters,” director Angela Chapin said of why they chose Cinderella. “This was a good opportunity to showcase several of our senior girls. This is their last opportunity and there are several female leads in this show. Then we have the guys who fit the bill.”

Senior Faye Valerio will play the title role. She is a four-year veteran of the musical, but will be playing the lead role for the first time.

“It was exciting because it is my senior year and it is my last year to do musical,” Valerio said. “Before, I never thought about actually being the lead so when I found out I was very excited.”

The cast has been working for months to get the show ready. Hours have been spent rehearsing, building sets and getting the lighting ready for opening night. Valerio said from the time auditions are held until the last night of the show, “It takes up so much time and once musical comes around it is literally your life.”

“Hours and hours and hours,” Chaplin said of the preparations. “You have auditions and then you have to cast and then you have to sit down and plan out your scenes, lighting and sound crew. You have to put all the set pieces together and paint and then hours and hours of rehearsal. It is months of preparation.”

Hairspray

Warren Central will take the stage March 1-3 with the classic musical Hairspray in the school’s auditorium. The show on March 1 will be at 6:30 p.m. and the shows March 2 and 3 will be at 7p.m. Tickets are $8 and can be purchased at the door or from any cast member.

Sophomore Ann Wallace DeRossette will play the lead role of Tracy Turnblad, a high school girl who is trying to earn a spot on a popular TV show and then works to help integrate the show.

“I was very shocked being a sophomore and excited at the same time because I love dancing and singing and it is a very dance heavy show. I definitely had a lot of pressure put on me,” DeRossette said. “I like the ending how both races get to dance on the TV show, because that is the whole point of the show. It is all about a girl who is not normal in the 60s. She didn’t get to be on the show because of her not being like everybody else, but then she proved them wrong.”

The musical has a new director this year as Eric Johnson takes the helm after being named choir director at the beginning of the spring semester.

“It (Hairspray) has been a favorite show of mine for a long time and it was the very first professional production show I ever got to see,” Johnson said. “I’ve always wanted to do it and we talked it over and felt we had the right cast to do that this year. We have a lot of really good dancers who go to the school and we wanted to utilize them before they graduate.”

The school started rehearsing in November and a lot of the work has been spent teaching the cast choreography and how to sing and dance at the same time.

“It is a very dance heavy show,” Johnson said. “Every single song has some element in dance in it so getting such large groups of kids and teaching the choreography and the music is a little challenging too. These kids have worked very hard to do it.”

Peter Pan

St. Al will be the last school to take the stage as they will perform the high flying adventure Peter Pan March 21-24 at Parkside Playhouse. The show will start at 7p.m. each night. Tickets are $15 and available at the school or at the door.

Senior Alexandra Tzotzolas will play the title role.

“It was pretty exciting,” Tzotzolas said of getting the lead. “I have been in the play since seventh grade. Since then my roles have been getting higher and higher up so knowing that I got the lead role was pretty exciting.

“Since he is a young boy, I don’t have to have very manly mannerisms. I don’t think it is going to be that hard because he is a little boy so I can act like myself.”

The school held auditions in November and has been rehearsing since January. Their biggest days of rehearsal will be held March 6-8 when ZFX Productions will be coming to town and teaching the cast and crew how to make the main characters fly.

“We are working with a company called ZFX Productions, which is the company that Vicksburg Little Theater used,” co-director and choreographer Chesley Lambiotte said. “They will be here for very intense 10 hours rehearsals. They train the fliers, the people who are coming in to fly the kids and the five students who will fly will also get rehearsal training.”

During the show, the students playing Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, and Wendy, John and Michael Darling will take to the air as they fly to Neverland.

“It is really exciting to be able to do that with our small school to have the opportunity to actually be able to fly,” Sarah Jane Pierce who is playing Tinkerbell said. “I am a little afraid of heights so it is going to be a little scary for me, but once you get that first go I think it will be a lot smoother.”