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From left, Caitlyn Crane, Will Haley and Logan Tabor rehearse a scene from the Ritz Theatre’s upcoming production of Leading Ladies. -
Will Haley reclines on a bench during a rehearsal of Leading Ladies at the Ritz. -
Director Clark Reed (left) and Gillian Crist rehearse a scene from Godspell. -
From left, Brody Jasso, Logan Tabor, Madalyn Hernandez and Shelby Powell practice a scene from Godspell.
Now that performing arts venues can open to 50 percent capacity, the Ritz Community Theatre is continuing work on its summer productions, Leading Ladies and Godspell, both of which began rehearsals recently.
Leading Ladies Director Olivia Haley is looking forward to her directorial debut, though she admits being a bit nervous. She has just finished her freshman year at West Texas A&M University and is majoring in theater performance. She has been involved in shows at the Ritz for most of her life, and now has the chance to direct her own production.
“I’ve been an assistant director with my mom’s (Stacy Haley’s) shows, and I’ve done theater camp here and been assistant director with that, but this is my first full-length show,” she said.
Haley said that she was supposed to produce Leading Ladies during her senior year at Snyder High School, but the program chose a different production.
“When (the Ritz Board) said that there was a spot open, I wanted to see if I could direct, and I looked at some shows but I couldn’t find anything that I really loved. Then I remembered, ‘Oh yeah, I was possibly going to do this one!’” she said. “So I asked for the script again, read it through and I fell in love with it. I fell in love with the comedy, and I knew it would do well here.”
The cast of Leading Ladies includes Carley Venter as Meg, Caitlyn Crane as Audrey, Kaylee Rush as Florence, Logan Tabor as Leo, Will Haley as Jack, Collin Mitten as Butch, Glenn Burns as Duncan and Chad Goebel as Doc.
Godspell Director Clark Reed went a slightly different direction for his summer production. Originally, Reed said that he had planned on staging Fiddler on the Roof or another large production that could be staged in Worsham Auditorium. That would have provided a larger venue and allowed bigger audiences, but circumstances meant he had to consider other options.
“I needed to go into a smaller musical, and then I landed on this one, initially just because I thought it was a fun way to reinterpret the Gospels. It had great music and a small cast, and it would be fun to do,” he said. “Once we started the process, I realized that this show had very intense healing properties, which I believe that theater has anyway, that the world needs right now. We need to feel hope. We need to feel salvation. We need to feel that we will come out of this better on the other side. With the state of the world as it is, we need some hope and inspiration, and I feel like this play really speaks to what happens after a tragedy happens or what happens after a crisis event occurs.”
Reed said that he doesn’t consider Godspell as being irreverent. Quite the opposite, in fact.
“It’s the same message. It just approaches the parables and the teachings of Jesus in a more lighthearted fashion,” he said. “It’s not to retell the story of Jesus. We’ve heard that story 1,000 times. The story this is trying to tell is about the people that make up Jesus’ church. It’s about how these people, after this horrible event happened, came together and continued the teaching of love and acceptance and hope, and that’s kind of the point of the musical.”
The cast of Godspell includes Logan Tabor as Jesus, Brody Jasso as John the Baptist/Judas, and Jaden West, Isaac Garcia, Gillian Crist, Kaylee Rush, Jessica Harms, Madalyn Hernandez, Olivia Haley, Shelby Powell, Brendan Mitchell and Jaxon West as themselves.