The director of the fall musical, Katie Jacobsen, recently announced that BHS is bringing “Shrek the Musical” to the stage. Every year, BHS puts on a musical in the fall. The cast and crew work very hard to put on the show, and Katie Jacobsen takes on a lot of responsibilities to make sure the production runs smoothly and is at its best.
“Shrek will be a great fit for the Baldwin stage and has been requested for YEARS by members of our cast,” lead director Katie Jacobsen said. “This was just the right year to do this particular show.”
Jacobsen had been helping direct the musicals for a while.
“The 2024 musical will be my 6th year as the lead director and 8th year as part of the director’s team,” Jacobsen said. “I was assistant director my 1st year and music director my 2nd year before taking over as lead director my 3rd year.”
Jacobsen has become very close with the cast and crew.
“I love getting to spend time with this amazing group of students,” Jacobsen said. “They’re all such wonderful humans and getting to create such awesome shows with even more awesome people is such an honor and privilege. I consider all of them “my kids” and love the little family we become through the course of our rehearsals and performances.”
There is lots of work that has to be done behind the scenes of putting on the show.
“As the director, I take care of prop collection and creation, costuming, scheduling, the overall picture of the show, publicity, and staging. I also help coordinate all of the fundraising, pre-sale tickets, and more,” Jabobsen shared.
Katie said that the hardest part about putting on the musical is the time commitment.
“It’s a lot of work and I’m usually at the Performing Arts Center most weekends between auditions and the performances as well as working on different elements over the summer so we’re ready to go when September auditions roll around,” Jacobsen said.
It takes lots of time and effort to put on a show.
“From auditions to performances, we have 8 weeks,” Jacobsen said. “We end up having somewhere around 30 rehearsals to put the whole show together. Planning-wise, we start exploring musical options in January of the year before, select a show, and order show rights all before announcing what it will be either at Starstruck or Choral Festival.”
She has the opportunity to select which musical they perform each year.
“To select shows, Rachel Naughtin and I consider everything from the vocal parts, to show content and family-friendliness, to availability of show rights,” Jacobsen said. “Once we pinpoint some shows that fit our designated criteria, I order most of the scripts and listen to recordings of the shows to make sure they’re accessible. If everything checks out, we then request a contract for the show we want to do and as long as there’s no hold on the title, we purchase showrights from there.”
If any students are interested in participating in the fall musical, Katie Jacobsen has all the information about the musical and auditions.
“Don’t be afraid to try new things!” Jacobsen said. “Many students will say that they were worried about the auditions themselves but after auditioning said it wasn’t nearly as worrisome as they thought. We have so much fun together and many students who try musicals for the first time say they wish they would have done it sooner.“