Director Brian Bowley explained that Emma: A Pop Musical is based the Jane Austen novel Emma about a young woman who considers herself a matchmaker and begins interfering in the lives of her friends and family to set them up with each other.
“She goes and starts meddling in other people’s lives in order to arrange these things for her friend,” Bowley laughed. “And, of course, everything goes awry. … The nice thing is that it’s been revamped into a high school, and all the songs are pop songs. And they’re fairly recent pop songs, such as “Unwritten” (by Natasha Bedingfield), and there’s stuff by Katy Perry, as well as older stuff by the Supremes.
“And the dialogue is cleverly written, and the cast has just blown me away again, they’re so awesome. … Can’t wait to see it on stage.”
There will be three showing of Emma: A Pop Musical, on Nov. 24, 25, and 26. Each show is from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Centennial Auditorium at Peacock.
Tickets are $15 to 20 and are available from Sasktix.ca.
“It’s a nice, light-hearted show and the music is really fun,” said music teacher Paul McCorriston, who is directing a pit band almost entirely made up of students this year. Having a student-led music section is challenging and rewarding, he said, and everyone is enjoying the popular music.
The student-led orchestra for the show consists of:
- Piano — Jeri-Lynn Ryba
- Keyboard — Josh Carley Alto
- Sax — Asher Miller Tenor
- Sax — Brooke Myers
- Trumpet — Emma Hill
- Trombone — Nevin Runnalls
- Guitar — Tague O' Bright
- Bass — Drew Amell
- Drums — Paige Adam-Chow
“This is going to be awesome. It’s challenging, it’s required the cast to be flexible, and they’ve risen to the challenge,” McCorriston said.
The staff production crew includes Brian Bowley as director, Paul McCorriston as musical director, Derek Porter as technical director, Holly McCorriston as choreography director, Wayne Dirkson doing set design, Chantel Mack in charge of costume design, and Maureen Merrifield as producer.
“The cast is really coming together, too, it’s an awesome environment and we’ve all become good friends, I think,” said Presley McLeod, who plays Harriet Smith. “We also have a pit band this year! We didn’t have that last year, so that’s very exciting, I’m super pumped to have live music.”
“It’s really helpful to have the pit band, because a lot of the rehearsal tracks don’t match our actual music composition on stage,” explained Isabelle Eros, who plays Emma Woodhouse, the lead. “When we make adjustments, the band is able to adapt really easily, so it gives us a better sense of what will happen in the show.
“It’s going to be really, really fun! I think people should definitely give it a shot. We’ve been working hard, and it’s age-appropriate for everyone, so I hope people come out to see us.”
In addition to McLeod and Eros’ roles, the full cast of the show is:
- Nigel Fang as Jeff Knightley
- Alexx Bakken as Frankie Churchill/student chorus
- Isabelle Adams as Jane Fairfax/student chorus
- Dade Traves as Philip Elton/student chorus
- Luka Pollock as Martin/student chorus
- Talys Williams as Ashley/student chorus
- Eden Breker as Miss Bates
- Rudle Ryba as Mr. Weston/student chorus
- Jade Miller as Miss Taylor/student chorus/girl 2
- Denise Baguna as Supreme singer #1/student chorus
- Mia Aparicio as Supreme singer #2/student chorus
- Katherine Delanoy as student chorus
- Wyatt Johnson as student chorus/tap solo/guy 2
- Jasmine Dally as student chorus/tap solo
- Micah Salido Porter as student chorus/guy 1
- Lilah Pirot as student chorus/girl 1/soloist
- Sakina Stationwala as student chorus/girl 3
- Dani Brazeal as student chorus
- Lucy Savard as student chorus
- Ophelia Bourdages as student chorus
