Students prepare to take the stage for ‘Burroughs on Broadway’
With about a week remaining until more than 200 high school students take the stage for “Burroughs on Broadway” in a three-night performance this weekend, the performers rehearsed last Thursday with director Brendan Jennings.
About 60 students who belong to the Powerhouse choir, one of the four choirs Jennings directs, were rehearsing selections from “The Who’s Tommy,” the 1990s rock musical inspired by the band’s 1969 album of the same name.
Burroughs senior Josh Strobl will play the role of Tommy.
“The role of Tommy is an incredibly difficult role to sing,” Jennings said. “It’s like super extremely high tenor, and he’s got a crazy, crazy tenor voice.”
Strobl plans to pursue a career in musical theater after he graduates in May, and he hopes to attend the University of Michigan, where he participated in a summer session there for three weeks this past summer.
“This [Burroughs] program is amazing. It has changed my life completely. I came into this program — I was just a new freshman at the school and automatically I had 60 friends, and when I got to know everybody, I had 200 friends,” he said.
“At lunch, you can go into the choir room and have fun and talk to your friends. You can always go to them if you need anything,” he added.
The program expects a lot from the students, Jennings said, as he referred to 60 young women who are in the school’s Sound Sensations choir and learned to tap dance over the summer. They will be performing a complicated piece from the musical “No, No, Nanette” in the show.
“We’re asking a lot; we know that, but the kids always live [up to] the expectations that we have,” he said.
As the Powerhouse choir rehearsed, fellow students on the school’s tech crew were busy tinkering with tools in a closet off stage.
Under teacher Jon King, tech crew members learn the craft of stage lighting, sound and prop building.
The program began 10 years ago with five students and has grown to have more than 60 today.
“We’re here for choir, dance, drama, whoever needs help — we kind of just do it all,” said senior Francisco Ruano.
After graduation, some tech crew members have gone on to secure careers in the local entertainment industry, including one student who graduated last year and now sets up professional lighting equipment, King said.
Last year, the students built a wooden 40-foot-long prop to resemble the Titanic, which rose 19 feet from its base, one of the most difficult projects the crew has taken on, according to senior Kody Barron, who joined the tech crew when he was a freshman.
This past weekend, they spent two days finishing work on a large, pinball-machine prop for the Powerhouse’s “Tommy” performance.
“A lot of the students that I get have no experience whatsoever with any kind of power tools or sound equipment or lighting equipment, and then by the end of the year, you have a student who really has an interest or who really gets it. They can go and get a job in the industry right out of school,” King said.