Junction City High School - Pow Wow Yearbook (Junction City, KS)

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Mrs. Paroo (Amy Moore. 87) tells her daughter, Marian, to go after Harold Hill, and to stop waiting for her white knight. Photo by Johnson At a Del Sarte meeting, a Pick-a-little lady (Cheri Perry. 88) is practicing the Grecian Urn Dance. Photo by Johnson Fall Play 21

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Charlie Conwell (Doug Jahnke, 87) tries to talk Marian Paroo into revealing Harold Hill's true identity to River City citizens. Photo by Johnson Dancing with his new found love. Marian Paroo (Jan Hofer. 87). Harold Hill (Dwayne Carrier. 87) sings the Shipoopi Photo by Johnson Trouble here in River City Professor Harold Hill brings band to JCHSauditorium Sandy Thurman DPS Editor The hammering and sawing had once again started. Preparations for the current “Say It With Music” play, The Music Man” had begun. Vocal music instructor Charels Volland was the Coordination Director, and Drama teacher Lee Howe was the technical Director. This put Volland in charge of the paperwork and expenses, while Howe took care of set designs and building. Howe s teacher assistants (TA's) Chris Harold, 87. Billy Reed, 87; and Sandy Thurman, 87, helped Howe make decisions about the set. They also ran the play from backstage. Being a T.A. and helping with a dramatic production could be very demanding, but rewarding in the end. According to Billy Reed, “When the play is over there is a warm feeling inside knowing that you did it.” In addition to planning the musical and building sets, many other advance preparations had to occur. Tryouts for lead characters were held in the spring of ‘86. This allowed more time to work on the musical in the fall. Both preliminary and final tryouts took place. Preliminaries at the very beginning of the school year and the finals a week later. The actors and actresses were picked on the basis of their ability to sing the songs that were required of the character, and on their ability to portray that character. For some of the parts, there was a lot of competition, and for others there was hardly any. Tryouts affected various actors act-resses in different ways. I was a little nervous, but not as bad as I thought I would be. The trick is to let everyone else try out, then you try out last. It’s a lot easier, said Dwayne Carrier, 87, who played Harold Hill. I wasn’t really nervous. There were only two others who tried out for my part. I had my friends there encouraging me also, and that really helps. said Jan Hofer, 87, who played Marian cont. on page 22 20 Fall Play

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cont. from page 20 Paroo. Still there were more preparations before the opening of the show. The costumes were either made by Howe or other seamstresses. A few of them were rented from the Kansas City Costume Company in Overland Park. Kansas. The children’s costumes were made by their parents. The set was built by Stagecraft I class. It took about four to five weeks to build. The props, such as chairs, tables, and coatracks, were borrowed from Johnson Brothers. The rest of the props were either borrowed from the the community or bought. The musical is about a traveling sales man. Harold Hill, who is a con artist. He creates a boys’ band in River City. Iowa. His only downfall is falling in love with Marian Paroo, who is the librarian. The play takes place in River City. Iowa, in 1912, around the fourth of July. Rehearsals for the musical lasted for three months. They were long, and a few problems were encountered. For instance, one week from opening night, one of the breakers on the lighting system shorted out. The rest of the rehearsal was conducted using the house lights. Some of the rehearsals were very rough: lines were forgotten, people missed cues, etc... But the show went on. Other problems happened backstage during scene changes. “Sets sometimes fell apart or failed to work correctly,” said Student Director, Sandy Thurman. There were also a few embarrassing moments. According to Dwayne Carrier, “Every rehearsal is an embarrassing moment” Jan Hofer was a little more specific. For instance, everyone discovered that she doesn’t like live worms, or rubber worms in her mouth, placed there by Dwayne Carrier. Even the stagecrew had embarrassing moments, especially when the student director tried to get the lightbooth over the headset by calling it a “yearbook.” It was also found that some of the stagecrew can’t sit on a park bench without losing their balance. The performances went well, although a few cues were missed and there were some problems backstage but all in all, the musical received good reviews from its audiences. “I was impressed and the scene changes were so quick,” said Karla Williams, 89. The musical was performed three times for the public. Since the Blue Jay football team went to substate, which was scheduled at JCHS at the time of the traditional Friday night performance, the musical was changed to a Sunday Matinee. The cast and crew weren't too thrilled about it. but they survived. While waiting for a scene change. Chris Harold. 87. and Billy Reed. 87. talk over the headset to the student director on how the play has progressed. Photo by Copeland At the final dress rehearsal. Mark Aguire. 88. puts on the finishing touches of his costume. Photo by Copeland 22 Fall Play