Lights went up on the McGehee Auditorium stage on February 13 for the final performance of Spongebob the Musical. The production was not only genuinely hilarious, but technically masterful! For 90 minutes, the audience was transported to Bikini Bottom with Spongebob, Patrick, Sandy, and the rest of the town.
That 90 minute performance was the culmination of months of auditions, rehearsals, and mistakes for the small cast. Back in October when most lower schoolers were perfecting their Halloween costumes, the cast was working towards perfecting their steps.
“We have some really tough choreography numbers in the show,” said Daniel Austin, director and head of the lower school theater department. “I remember the first days that we were working on it, and some of them are looking at me like, I’m never going to get this, this is impossible. I just kept telling them, I promise you, this is why we’re doing this first, it’s the end of October, the show’s not until February. By the time you get to February, you’re gonna be able to do this in your sleep. Here we are, it’s February, and they’re doing it.”
All cast members had to go through the audition process, a process that may seem unorthodox to some.
“There are students that make it and students that don’t. I make that really, really clear to the students and really clear to the parents. I think when people first hear that I do that, they’re like, how could you do that? Because I think a lot of people that work with this age, when they do shows, they do that thing where they take everybody, and then you end up with these musicals where you might have like 80 kids in them. I don’t like to do that because then I think it’s not a quality experience,” explained Austin.
This method instills an extra sense of accomplishment and belonging to the actors who make it and ensures that every Bikini Bottom member is there for a reason and makes a meaningful contribution, Austin said.
“They get to be involved in a significant way” he said, “and nobody feels like, Oh, I’m the third tree to the left.”
So why Spongebob and what made this show one of the best to come out of the Bolles theater department? After struggling with the choice for this year’s musical, Austin found the youth edition of Spondgebob and after listening to the lyrics, he had a revelation.
“I realized that this was actually the perfect musical to do this year, because it’s about the town Bikini Bottom facing a horrible, insurmountable challenge, and it’s about everyone disagreeing on how to tackle that challenge, and people not knowing who to trust, not knowing if they should be listening to the government, if they should be listening to their friends, if they should be working together, if they should be splitting off into different groups. I think it actually is a reflection of what is going on right now, and it’s all about looking at it from an optimistic lens.”
While Spongebob may seem like a laughable character, to Austin, he is the “ultimate optimist” who sees the best in everyone and always wants to trust those around him.
Not only is the show filled with uplifting and hysterical characters, it also includes many songs from different musical styles. Even the cast is torn between which one is the favorite.
“My favorite song in the show, it’s called Tomorrow Is” said Austin. “It’s all about the night before everything is supposed to go down, and they’ve, you know, they’ve been fighting with each other, tearing each other apart, splitting into different camps, all deciding different ways on how to handle this problem. And then they all come together to kind of sing their different perspectives about, like, what tomorrow’s going to look like. And I think that that’s just really relatable to the audience. We all have those nights where we go, oh man, like, tomorrow’s gonna be it.”
The fifth-grader who played Spongebob had a different opinion. “My favorite song is “Hero is my Middle Name,” he said. “I like how energetic it is and I really like the choreography.”
The audience may not realize the work to improve the lighting system or the many hours of training on the two big scaffolding set pieces that the actors navigate, but they do see the incredible result of all of these factors and the pride and joy on the actors faces is impossible not to see.
“The magic of theater is kind of hiding all that stuff,” said Austin, “it’s like all the chaos that we see backstage. The audience just sees the final product, and they see the polish on it, and that’s kind of what makes it awesome”.
