This fall, the Nixa High School Theatre Department performed “The Wizard of Oz.” This musical follows Dorothy Gale, a young girl from Kansas who gets caught up in a tornado and transported to the magical land of Oz. In order to get back to Kansas, Dorothy has to make her way to“The Wizard of Oz without getting taken by the Wicked Witch of the West. Along the way, Dorothy meets three characters: Scarecrow, Tin Man and The Cowardly Lion. The four of them work together to get Dorothy back home. Senior Alyssa Schmidly played the role of Dorothy Gale.
“I’m a decent amount like Dorothy,” Schmidly said. “She’s the ingénue – she’s just your basic girl but she’s not just that, so I kind of got a lot of opportunities to put myself into the character. The way she carries herself, I can kind of put … a little bit of my own touch behind it. She’s confident in ways I wish I was.”
With the show having several lead characters, it serves as an opportunity to give many students a chance to shine. Junior Gavin Collins was given his first lead role as The Cowardly Lion.
“It’s definitely a different experience from ‘SpongeBob’ because I mean in ‘SpongeBob’ I was the beatboxing pufferfish,” Collins said. “I was just kind of a little background character but now that I’m like a lead and I have my own songs and my own little monologue-type bits it’s definitely a different experience and it kind of humbles me a little bit because I see everybody else that’s like Scarecrow and Tin Man like they’ve done this for longer, they’ve had more leads than I have and I’ve still gotta stay humble about it because I just got here.”
The NHS Theatre Department has three directors: Lakyn Wools, Cory Glenn and Allison Fleetwood. Each year there are three shows split up between each director. “The Wizard of Oz” was directed by Lakyn Wools.
“I think it’s just been really special to just share my passion and kind of find the message behind the story of like friendship and going on an adventure and like realizing that you’re not alone has been really special,” Wools said. “That message is so important to me and to get to see that in these students for them to grasp onto it has just been really special.”
Between initial auditions and callbacks, the audition process lasted several days. Being selected by the directors to be a part of the cast can be a confidence boost for many.
“[Being cast as Dorothy] scared me,” Schmidly said. “I was so excited initially and then as we started hitting the ground running I realized, ‘Wait a second this is a lot,’ and there have been times when I felt like they picked the wrong person and I was not the right girl to play Dorothy. But then knowing that [the directors] had that faith in me helped me keep going.”
Although the casting process is stressful, the directors are content with their choices.
“[The students] are doing so great,” Wools said. “They’ve really impressed me with how they’re able to tackle that challenge of stepping into these iconic memorable characters and just making it their own but still being true to the material.”