By Jaehun Lee
Arts Reporter
When it was announced that A Chorus Line would be the fall musical late last year, current junior Yuval Dinoor could hardly wait to audition.
“When A Chorus Line was picked from a long list of promising maybes, I was overjoyed,” Dinoor said. “A Chorus Line is relatable, timeless, and iconic, but best of all, it’s a dance show—an opportunity I have been looking forward to ever since I started acting.”
But once students began signing up for auditions, South Stage quickly realized that it would not be able to cast its current fall season of A Chorus Line and Eurydice due to a shortage of male actors.
“We were going to do A Chorus Line, and they trimmed it down to nine girls and six guys [originally A Chorus Line has nine male parts],” junior Abby Lass said. “But there were still not enough guys in the season, so Mr. Honeyman [the musical’s director] chose instead to cast 18 girls and to have them create their own show. We all met in June to discuss ideas.”
Honeyman and the cast members decided against having a continuous plot and instead chose to write a musical revue with a mix songs from preexisting shows, original short stories, and monologues from cast members.
In addition to music from shows such as Wicked and Into the Woods, Girlhood includes original works from the cast and true stories from their lives.
“It let us be really creative,” junior Tema Siegel said. “We got to choose our own songs and make our own themes, and build our own show. We went through a lot of rehearsals coming up with ideas about the format: should it have a storyline? Should we pick a theme and choose songs and monologues that fit within that theme? Should we just make it about us?
“In the end, the third option was what we ended up doing. There are pre-written aspects in the musical, but there’s also a lot of original content coming from cast members as well.”
Cast members deemed the sense of community that has bound all of them together one of the highlights of the process.
“Having a group of people to be with everyday was definitely one of my favorite parts of the musical,” junior Jessie Shiner said. “Being able to talk about anything from how your day was to some of the most difficult situations you’ve dealt with in life to a small victory you made that day. Essentially, just having people open to listening to your ideas was awesome.”
“It sounds cheesy, but I genuinely have never been closer with a cast I’ve worked with,” Dinoor said.
“Throughout the process, we’ve been telling deeply personal stories and a lot of trust was built between us as we went along. These girls knew some things about me before I even told my parents about them…Rehearsal is the most secure space in my life right now.”
One of the main concerns cast members have about the production is that it is largely based on their own lives and experiences, as well as the question of what it means to be a female in the twenty first century.
“I think one of our concerns was ‘Is it going seem too preachy?’” senior Michelle Sandler said. “I think it was hard for some of us to portray our stories without it sounding like complaints. What I really want is for the audience to get to know us better, not just 18 actresses, but 18 girls, 18 people, and to be able to relate to our struggles.”
Shiner and Dinoor hope that the audience will enter the show with an open mind and by the end, will gain the confidence to open up to others.
“I hope this show inspires all people to think about the difficulties and beauties of their day to day lives…and not be afraid to face them head on,” Shiner said. “I want people to leave feeling a sense that walls are slowly breaking down and that they have the confidence to talk about issues that matter to them just as we did in this show.”
“Yes, we’re 18 girls with some experience being female, but we’re also 18 girls with experience being a teenager, being a child, being a friend, and being human,” Dinoor said.
