Drama is bringing the heat with its new production ‘Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief,’ a story based on Greek mythology and the story of becoming a hero to not only others, but to yourself. For the last few months, the theater class has been working day-in and day-out to prepare for their production, which will be showing Oct 17-19.
“Percy Jackson and the Olympians” is a series of fantasy novels written by Rick Riordan, which have been adapted into movies and theater productions alike. ‘The Lightning Thief,’ the opening installment in the series, was recognized among the best children’s books, being praised by The New York Times. The story focuses on Percy, a 12 year-old boy who learns his father is the Greek god of the sea, Poseidon. His goal is to become the hero and travel across the U.S. to stop a war between the Gods.
“Last year, we had issues with our spring musical, where people didn’t come to see it, because they didn’t know the story. But people know the story of ‘The Lightning Thief,’ so I really hope people would love to come see it because it’s a great musical,” Jolin Alcindor, the stage manager for the production, said.
The show features a lot of pyrotechnics and a hand-made set with a lot of hard work and long hours put into it by the cast and production team.
“Finishing the set is quite stressful. I’m here when I’m not supposed to be working on the set, working on things that need to get finished, and it’s just kind of stressful to put everything together last minute,” Hannah Rugar, the set coordinator for the production, said.
The show has a 12-person cast of main characters, such as Samantha Orne (Percy) and Sofia McLaughlin (Katie and Hades) who have been working diligently to memorize lines, prepare, and also help manage every other aspect of the production.
“It’s been long and hard, but it’s been amazing. [The cast] is a lot smaller than we’re used to, but it’s a great group of people, and we’re all really close, and I feel like the crews are doing an amazing job and are super underappreciated and everything. I just feel like it’s going to be really, really great,” Orne said.
“I’m so excited to see this all come to life and see the audience’s reactions to everything, because this is a very. This is a tech heavy show, and it’s a very cast dependent show as well, so I’m really really excited to see it pay off,” Katana Henderson, who plays Ms. Dodds, farmer, and Chiron, said.
Anyone interested in seeing the production of “The Lightning Thief” can prepurchase tickets here for the October show.
