By Chiara Volonakis ‘29

Each fall term, Wyoming Seminary’s players and crew put on a fantastic musical performance, complete with heartwrenching (or heartwarming) scenes, captivating songs, and crisp choreography, all surrounded by a beautiful set. This season, students, faculty, family, friends, and the ghosts hiding in the rafters of the KCCA had the pleasure of seeing Little Women: The Broadway Musical. To the innocent audience – who have not yet experienced the nightmare that is tech week or the struggles of remembering dozens of lines, lyrics, and scene changes – a school musical just seems like a fun way to support your classmates. But putting on a musical in less than two months is a lot harder than it seems like on stage. Let this article be a behind-the-scenes look into what that cast and crew of Little Women really had to go through.

When asked what the hardest part of performing in Little Women was, Sophia Roper ‘28 (who played Amy, one of the four March sisters) instantly replied “the harmonies in ‘Five Forever’ are really bad.” When the audience hears these songs for the first time, they often neglect the hours of rehearsal it took to make the notes sound so powerful. All this practice can be quite taxing, which was expressed by Jack Seltzer ‘30, Laurie’s actor. As the only freshman in the cast, Jack’s biggest struggle was “the amount of rehearsals… It’s a lot.” As the show dates grew closer, the amount of time spent practicing scenes grew as well, until the eventual five and a half hour long tech rehearsals. Throughout all this, performers are also trying to grow into their character’s role. Sadie Poepperling ‘27, who played multiple roles, said that she struggles with “trying to improve yourself without getting embarrassed.”

An actor might seem flawless, with memorized lines and on-point character notes, but Sadie made it clear that “you can’t just start good at everything.” It’s not just the cast that struggled to put on this performance. Ellen Sherry, Little Women’s costumer, spoke about how much of a struggle it was to research time-period accurate outfits for the actors, “Sherrys are sticklers for the details!” she exclaimed, and this is proven true by the stunning rental costumes the actors wore. Every piece of the set needed period accuracy as well in order for the performance to feel right. 

Now, audience, you may be wondering, why would anyone sign up for this torture? A fair question. Maybe it’s something you can only experience once you’ve put in the countless hours, maybe thespians are just crazy. But there’s something about that final moment, when all your hard work has finally paid off.