The last performance of the year for Preston High School’s theater students will be free to all.
No matter a student’s specific interest, they will get the chance to show off their talents.
“This is like a cabaret kind of style, where my music theater ensemble and my Music Theater 1 class perform songs,” Leah DeLauder, theater teacher said. “… We just showcase four soloists and ensemble numbers. And we’re putting the scenes now before the song and then the stagecraft class designs the sets for them.”
The performance starts at 7:30 p.m. on May 6 at the PHS theater. Doors open at 7.
DeLauder took over as the school’s theater teacher in January when her mom, Lynn Broderick, retired.
As with so many other things, for a time students lost theater because of COVID-19.
“COVID really just took a lot from us and took a lot from multiple things. I’m also in the band, we couldn’t play our instruments, it took away from so many things. So to get to come back and come back to the stage is really nice, especially after COVID just taking it away from us,” said Ainsely Walker, 17, a senior. “That was a very sad time for a lot of us.”
Walker will take part in the ensembles and will perform one of her favorite musical theater songs – When He Sees Me from Waitress as a solo.
“I was fortunate enough to see it on Broadway before COVID. And I instantly connected with the song when I saw it on Broadway,” she said. “And so I’ve always had a connection with it. So I wanted to prepare it for myself and perform it for my fellow theater friends.”
Koty Trenum, 17, will sing as Nostrodomos from Something Rotten about what musicals will be like in the Shakespearian era.
Trenum said he’s always loved singing and got his musical and theatrical start at church. His freshman year, he auditioned for and was cast in Pippin. Since then, he just keeps going for roles.
Walker said her family has always been singers and her first experience with theater was Oklahoma at Potomac State College.
“Ever since then, I just fell in love with the stage and being a part of dancing and singing, and acting and doing all this stuff,” Walker said. “And just performing for others and getting to make others laugh, just instantly laugh and smile, just instantly had me obsessed with the theater and wanting more.”
It’s a wonderful thing to get into, Trenum said.
“I would never replace it for anything in the world,” Trenum said. “It’s truly a wondrous thing.”
