{"id":43824,"date":"2021-11-10T21:48:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-11T04:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-middle-school-to-embody-wacky-willy-wonka-in-biggest-production-in-two-years\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:15:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:15:43","slug":"montezuma-cortez-middle-school-to-embody-wacky-willy-wonka-in-biggest-production-in-two-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-middle-school-to-embody-wacky-willy-wonka-in-biggest-production-in-two-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma-Cortez Middle School to embody wacky Willy Wonka in biggest production in two years"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Montezuma-Cortez
Montezuma-Cortez Middle School's rendition of Willy Wonka Jr. will come before audiences starting Thursday. (Courtesy of Mia Jermeiah)<\/span>Courtesy Mia Jermeiah<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Montezuma-Cortez Middle School theatre and choir departments are hosting their biggest production in two years: \u201cWilly Wonka Jr.,\u201d debuting at 7 p.m. Thursday.<\/p>\n

For 10 weeks, 50 students across all three grade levels have prepared to bring the new take on the classic \u201cWonka\u201d tale to the stage \u2013 while still encompassing the original themes of nonsensical adventure, hilarity and eccentricity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think for this show, in particular, we just wanted to do something colorful and fun and lighthearted, just something happy and really positive,\u201d said M-CMS Theatre Director Angela Gabardi, who organized the production along with Choir Director Marla Sitton.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the pandemic, middle school theatre productions were smaller in scale. Plays encompassed fewer cast and crew members and audiences, and some were even virtual, Gabardi said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve definitely persevered and made theater happen,\u201d Gabardi said. \u201cIt\u2019s just with this one nothing was holding us back.\u201d<\/p>\n

This makes the \u201cWonka\u201d performance all the more special, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the community really, really misses out when we can\u2019t do stuff like this, and they have missed out,\u201d Sitton said. \u201cSo it\u2019s really, really awesome that we\u2019re able to do a full musical in the space.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cast and crew weren\u2019t without their obstacles, though.<\/p>\n

Amid temporary school closures because of COVID-19 and resulting workforce shortages, rehearsals became digital for two weeks.<\/p>\n

Students rehearsed their lines over Zoom meetings, and even sang, too \u2013 although they had to keep their microphones muted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe kids were so excited to see each other, to read through the script to listen to the music, and just excited to keep the show going,\u201d Gabardi said.<\/p>\n

She thinks that one of the songs in the musical, titled \u201cThink Positive,\u201d comes at just the right time, and will offer a much-needed dose of optimism.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am so proud of the actors and crew who have worked so hard,\u201d said stage manager Elyse VanBuren told The Journal<\/em>. \u201cIt is amazing to see these people come so far. I am so excited that we are going to be able to have our first full-length show in over a year. The play that we have made is absolutely amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aurora Poulin will play starring character Willy Wonka.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, this show means everything,\u201d Poulin said. \u201cThis will be the first musical we can do since our theatre program was shut down by COVID, along with this being my first show as a lead. It\u2019s truly magical to be able to come together again and create a show.\u201d<\/p>\n

The show will run on Thursday, Friday and Saturday in the middle school\u2019s main gym. Thursday and Friday\u2019s performances will begin at 7 p.m., and the closing performance Saturday will begin at 2 p.m.<\/p>\n

Adult tickets are $10, student and senior tickets are $6, and admission is free for M-CMS students and staff \u2013 as well as for children ages two and under.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M-CMS excited for biggest production in two years following pandemic <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1060,147,155,28,167,216,2401,29,181,93,910],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-43824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arts-entertainment","tag-cortez-middle-school","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-local-news-lead","tag-montezuma-cortez-school-district-re-1","tag-musical-theater","tag-newsletter","tag-school","tag-students","tag-theatre"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43824","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=43824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85857,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43824\/revisions\/85857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43824"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=43824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}