Musical “Little Women” entertains Davis High

By Hannah Cho,
BlueDevilHUB.com Editor

Students in the Davis High drama club began displaying months of practice and dedication to the production of “Little Women” at its debut on Nov. 2.

“Little Women” was originally a coming-of-age novel about four sisters: Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy March. The DHS drama club took the novel an extra step by creating a musical rendition.

Senior Jordan Hayakawa played lead role–Jo March–using “dynamic” and “fun” to describe her character’s personality.

“Jo is a super fun character, and she has a huge transition from while she grows up,” Hayakawa said. “She starts the show as young and fun and running all over the place, but by the end she’s more quiet and reserved. It’s fun figuring that out and figuring out all the relationship.”

Although an enjoyable experience, the process of preparing for the show wasn’t all “sunshine and rainbows.”

“The hardest part was learning all the parts of the music. There’s a lot of them,” Hayakawa said. “Also, this week, we got a lot of new costumes and props and stuff so just remembering what you’re holding in your hands [is difficult].”

On the other side of the production is the stage crew that worked with building the set and handling the logistics of the musical.

Junior Jason Joo, who was the assistant technical director for the show, contributed in sound and stage craft.

“I’m really proud of the show wagon, which is there for pretty much the entire show,” Joo said. “I put a lot of work into that with a lot of other people […] It was a lot of fun. I’m really proud of how that turned out.”

For senior Travis Cosgrave, who is also part of the stage crew team, “Little Women” was his first project at DHS.

“You put in a little bit of work for a lot of different things, so it’s not really like ‘I personally have built all this by myself.’ I worked in a lot of different parts of the set,” Cosgrave said. “I’ve [also] done construction in the past so it’s not really that new of a thing for me.”

Cosgrave says that his favorite part of the show was being able to interact with his friends and see his work on stage.

“It [was] cool watching the show and being like, ‘Oh, great! I built that!’ and to see it come together,” he said.

Kathy Peter, who supervised this show–specifically the stage craft side of it–expressed her excitement about her students.

“This is no small undertaking, and I am always impressed at how willing stagecraft students are to trying new things and pushing outside their comfort zone,” Peter said. “Without their hard work, none of this is possible!”

Audience members had varying responses to the show, highlighting different areas of the production that they liked.

Senior Aditi Mahajan’s favorite part about the show was the singing. “It was absolutely beautiful,” she said.

Mahajan also thought the plot was relatable and easy to follow. “Growing up with two brothers and all, I felt like I’m also a tomboy like [Jo],” she said.

Sophomore Angela Lin also complimented the actors’ singing, but for a different reason; she thought the songs played well in with the plot. Lin liked one song, “Five Forever,” in particular.

“I thought it was really interesting how all the characters kind of binded together,” Lin said. “[The characters] had a lot of conflict in the beginning, but at that point they were all united as one and it was really cool to hear how the melodies and stuff intertwined.”

“Little Women” will continue onto this Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 7p.m.