With bright technicolors, boisterous tap numbers, and plenty of cheer, the cast and crew of Westwood Theatre’s annual musical brought the iconic movie-musical Singin’ in the Rain to life at the Raymond E. Hartfield Performing Arts Center (PAC) from Thursday, Jan. 15 to Saturday, Jan. 17. 

A yearly undertaking for the students involved with the musical theatre course, the process of putting the show together began early in the year, with auditions in August. Following the casting process, the company immediately dived into blocking, choreography, and many after-school rehearsals to begin to perfect the show. 

“This is a show where it’s supposed to be joyous, and the entire process was joyous,” Maddy Ziegler ‘27 said. “The thing I remember most specifically was when we were at the PAC and every time you got off stage there was someone there you know waiting to congratulate you. I think the thing that stood out the most to me was just the community that we were able to foster.”

The show centered around 1920s era actor Don Lockwood, his best friend Cosmo Brown, and his love interest Kathy Selden as they attempted to save Lockwood’s latest film, a groundbreaking talkie picture, from the awful vocals of his co-star Lina Lamont. While the musical is a laborious process for everyone involved, the three leads especially took on lots of responsibility both on and off stage. 

“It was definitely a challenge,[and]  I was very excited to do it, but I didn’t realize so much of being a lead happened off stage,”  Ziegler, who portrayed Kathy, said “All of a sudden you get put into this role of leadership as well. If I wasn’t being positive or trying my best, I knew I was setting an example, and I knew I had to uphold that.”

The elaborate, cinematic quality of the show meant that the scale greatly increased, with actors having to perfect their tap dancing skills and learn how to embody 1920s physicality and dialect, in addition to performing remarkable vocal feats. 

“For this role, I had to learn how to tap dance, which was a big [challenge],” Sophia Nikazm ‘27 who portrayed Cosmo said. “Also for this specific role, I was a man, and I obviously had to adjust some of the songs so it wouldn’t be in such a low register. I think overall, I just had to be a smarter actor and find more time to put in work and to adjust it to where I could actually feel confident in the role. When I got working and when I let myself make mistakes is when I actually started to see myself grow, and I think it was really fulfilling as an actor to have that and to be a part of that.”

The show also benefited from a star lineup of supporting characters, each of whom added their own unique flair to the piece and created a vibrant ensemble of distinct personalities. 

“I kind of knew that [film director Roscoe Dexter] was not a plot essential character, he’s just on stage to be a joke,” Wes Autry ‘26 said. That’s when I started playing with being loud and expressive. But as the show started to come closer, I was like, ‘I’m not doing enough’. I realized, go big or go home. If you think you’re doing too much, you should probably keep going. So that’s what I did. I think just being as extravagant and extra and loud and weird as possible, especially for a character like that, it brings you forward.”

Beyond serving as actors and technicians, students in the company took on other leadership roles and responsibilities, lending their expertise in dance and vocals to aid Musical Director Mr. George Franco. 

“It was a challenge that I was really excited to pursue because it was just really exciting to me to be able to choreograph my own things but then also share it with the rest of the cast,” Elliott Richards ‘26, who portrayed Don Lockwood said.

When it came to adapting such an iconic and well-known musical, the company had to walk the line between paying homage to the show and adding their own original touches. 

“Normally with shows that I would choreograph for, I would want to be completely original,” Richards, who was also the lead student choreographer, said. “Since this is such a well-known, established musical, I really wanted to keep it within the style, make little references here and pay homage to the film itself. If there were little things throughout the movie that are really memorable, I really was pushing for all of those things to be in the show, just so people that have watched the movie and then came to see our show would recognize it. It’s like finding little sparks of the original piece and the original material in this whole new material that we’re creating.”

In a novel addition to the stage show, the company was also tasked with creating the silent films that the show’s central characters act in. Brady Johnson ‘26 was the cinematic lead, collaborating with fellow AV students and the rest of the company to create upwards of five silent films that played throughout the show’s runtime. 

“It started off with really just going through the scripts and seeing and trying to just do the basic material and then going through it and expanding upon it and seeing what could be fun that is not simply in the script and how can we take what’s there and transform it into something new and more spectacular than the kind of nothing burger that was in there,” Johnson said. 

The addition of the films also presented a unique challenge for the actors, who had to unravel the meta complexities that arise from being an actor in real life, playing a fictional actor, who is playing a character. 

“I really tried to think of it as rather than Elliott playing this role, I had to think of it through the lens of how Don Lockwood would approach a character,” Richards said. “It was very much of how I [have] established my character so far, and how would he approach a new character?”

For sophomores in Singin’ in the Rain, this was their first opportunity to take the stage and truly experience what goes into making the musical happen. While many took the foundational Musical One course in their freshman year, the Advanced Musical course offers myriad challenges and opportunities for students to grow as performers and ensemble members. 

“It’s definitely entirely different experiences,” Lucy Petiprin ‘28 said. “Musical One was really nice because it was a lot of intro and we got to know our grade a lot better. I think it helped out a lot in the audition process and choosing songs and stuff like that. We had things that we could go off of and an experience that we could place down.”

After the months of hard work and dedication that the cast put into the show, the entire company were able to revel in the reward of audience appreciation and connection through theatre. 

“I think that we learn throughout the process that we perform so much better when we are encouraging towards each other, and in moments where we really leaned on each other, we learned that it makes us feel closer, and makes our art better,” Annie Curtis ‘26 said. “I think that when you spend so much time with everyone, if you want to have a good time, you might as well get along and encourage each other.” 

The Westwood Theatre takes the stage next on Friday, March 6 for a public performance of their One Act competition play, You Can’t Take it With You at the Big Black Box.