Skip to content

ECS students ready to perform Footloose

After months of practices and rehearsals, students at the Estevan Comprehensive School are ready to perform the musical Footloose for the community. Performances will happen on Nov. 29 and 30 at 7 p.m., and Dec. 1 and 2 at 2 p.m.
high school musical
Students involved in the Estevan Comprehensive School’s musical production of Footloose are ready to perform the show from Nov. 29 to Dec. 2.

After months of practices and rehearsals, students at the Estevan Comprehensive School are ready to perform the musical Footloose for the community.

Performances will happen on Nov. 29 and 30 at 7 p.m., and Dec. 1 and 2 at 2 p.m. at the school’s cafetorium. It’s a showcase of the talents of about a hundred students and adult volunteers who are part of the cast and working behind the scenes.

“We’re in the final home stretch,” said Evanne Wilhelm, who is the co-director with Arlene Lafrentz and the producer of the musical. “We have had some 14-hour days. The kids are excited, they’re hanging in. They’re not showing fatigue or anything.”

The final rehearsal was held on Sunday. They will have a performance for elementary school students on Wednesday that serves as a trial run.

“The students are ready,” said Wilhelm. “They were ready probably a weekend ago, but we’re pushing them now to be spectacular, exceptional and challenging them more.”

“We’re asking more,” added Lafrentz, who is also a voice coach for the musical. “We’re challenging them more with their characters. Every time we see it, we ask them to do something just a little bit more to add to their characters to bring it to life.”

Cast members have been working on their three-part harmony for weeks, and those have come together.

“Today was an exciting day,” Lafrentz said on Saturday. “They’re really bringing their game.”

This is the second straight year ECS has run a musical, which is a rarity, since it usually happens once every second year. Many of the kids will be in their third musical in the past four years.

“We haven’t had kids that have done a third musical in likely two decades,” said Wilhelm.

Footloose includes a cast of 45 students, a crew of 20 students working behind the scenes, another 20 students working on the hair and makeup, and 15 adult volunteers who have been working and coaching along the way.

This year’s musical also features a couple of changes. They have stages in the audience in addition to the stage at the front of the cafetorium. It has forced them to plan for a lot of movement and to co-ordinate with the tech crew.

“We’re on headsets and we’re calling out the timing, the cuing, and when to send somebody and when to pull somebody back … and so they’re doing a lot of tech work that nobody sees that makes it look like it’s effortless, but it isn’t,” said Wilhelm.

The school also has some new lights, thanks to the support of eight donors who contributed $5,000 each. The amount will be paid out each of the next two years.

Those donors saw School of Rock last year and wanted to support the school’s musical program.

Wilhelm recalled, “They approached us and said ‘This was such a great production. We were absolutely floored by how amazing School of Rock was. What do you guys need and how can we support you?’”

Those involved with the musical created a wish list, not thinking it would ever come to fruition, and once the wish list was completed the donors stepped forward.

“We actually had some lights that had asbestos in them,” said Wilhelm. “They were still usable as long as nothing was disturbed. But they were older and they gave off a lot of heat on the stage, so our performers would be sweating.”

They also couldn’t do some of the newer things that can happen with LED lights.

Tickets are still available for all four performances of Footloose, but they are about 75-80 per cent sold out. They will be available at Pharmasave each day until about two hours before the performance, when tickets will be transferred to main entrance of the cafetorium.

All of the VIP tables have been sold out for the four performances.

The proceeds from this year’s musical will be directed to staging future musicals at the school