{"id":103040,"date":"2017-10-25T17:17:18","date_gmt":"2017-10-25T23:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-middle-school-to-premiere-into-the-woods-jr\/"},"modified":"2017-10-25T17:17:18","modified_gmt":"2017-10-25T23:17:18","slug":"cortez-middle-school-to-premiere-into-the-woods-jr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-middle-school-to-premiere-into-the-woods-jr\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez Middle School to premiere \u2018Into the Woods, Jr.\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The cast and crew of Cortez Middle School\u2019s production of \u201cInto The Woods, Jr.\u201d<\/span>Emily Rice\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Next weekend, Cortez Middle School Theater will premiere \u201cInto the Woods, Jr.,\u201d a twist on Stephen Sondheim\u2019s musical fairytale about the choices and wishes we make in life.<\/hardreturn><\/p>\n

It shows on Friday, Nov. 3 at 7 p.m., and repeats on Saturday, Nov. 4, at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.<\/p>\n

The play is being co-directed by Angela Gabardi and Marla Sitton, with accompaniment by Debbie McHenry.<\/p>\n

Sitton is the choir teacher at both M-CHS and CMS, and Gabardi is a former student of hers.<\/p>\n

The two directors have been waiting for a class strong enough to put on a show of this proportion and sophistication.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe actually wanted to do it the first year, and we just knew that we couldn\u2019t so we chose this one this year because we have lots of great singers and actors and lots of kids that want to be in it,\u201d Sitton said. \u201cThis is our third musical, and each musical has gotten a little more difficult in terms of what we have to work with and what the kids have really had to step it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Gabardi and Sitton, the play is the \u201cjunior version\u201d of the Tony Award-winning musical because it eliminates mature content, does not include the second act, and has shortened the musical number. It\u2019s more accessible to a younger and wider audience, but still contains much of the lyrical power of the original musical, which was based on Brothers Grimm fables.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to choose it because we have a lot of eighth-graders that will be going on to high school who have worked with us for three years,\u201d said Gabardi, the theater and computer teacher at the middle school. \u201cWe had to pick something to really showcase their gifts and their talents because they worked so hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

The actors, actresses and crew of the play are excited to show off that hard work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what the audience should remember is, \u2018Hey those kids actually did that,\u2019 seventh-grader Gillian Schuenemeyer said. \u201cMiddle school (students) can actually do it. It isn\u2019t just a dumb little play where you put on costumes and do a little funny jig. It is a show; it is magic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Franklin Gray, seventh-grader and \u201cninja\u201d crew member, said that he had joined theater because of his familial ties.<\/p>\n

\u201cI joined theater because all my siblings and my family before that have been in it,\u201d Gray said. \u201cIt is fun to be able to move the set around.\u201d<\/p>\n

The students hope their audiences can leave the show with something they did not have before.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want kids, especially when they get to middle school, to be like, \u2018I want to do that,\u2019\u201d sixth-grader Lily Sandner said. \u201cI don\u2019t want them leaving like \u2018that was a boring little show,\u2019 because I remember when I was little, watching my dad\u2019s plays, is when I started wanting to do theater. So I want them to leave knowing they want to do theater.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the students in the cast and crew hope to work as actors and actresses as a profession.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I really like about being an actress is that you get to kind of fill in a role that isn\u2019t you, and you get to act like somebody else, and it just kind of empowers you, and you get to learn a moral or a lesson along the way with the story,\u201d eighth-grader Marina Bradley said.<\/p>\n

Quinn Nielson, also an aspiring actress and eighth-grader, hopes to be a good role model for younger audiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I like about being an actor is good actors are role models,\u201d Nielson said. \u201cI have lots of actor role models, and they just inspire me everyday, and I want to inspire people like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cast and crew are hard at work preparing for their Nov. 3 premiere. With so much time put into the show, the group has become close.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most fun part is getting to meet so many new people because before they are just like strangers,\u201d eighth-grader Khyztin Stiegelmeyer said. \u201cBut then they become like your family, and you feel like you can go through anything with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tickets are $8 for general admission, and $5 for children under 12, Montezuma-Cortez High School students and senior citizens. Admission is free for CMS students and staff, M-CHS staff and children under 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Students prepare for opening night on Nov. 3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":103041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,147,13,2401],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-103040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-cortez-middle-school","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-musical-theater"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103040"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=103040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}