‘Sweet Charity’ comes to life on stage | Newspaper Article

 Fall musical premieres as first play of the school year

Callen Romell, staff reporter

DANCING INTO CHARACTER: Junior Zalie Mann takes center stage during the opening night of Sweet Charity as the ponytail girl, a dancer in the New York nightclub, the Pompeii Club. Mann is the featured dancer during her scenes.

To prepare for the role, Mann had to do research on her character as well as study the dance style and watch videos of others playing the character to draw inspiration from. She also hopes to try for a more positive environment in the coming shows, saying it’s quite easy to get into a negative headspace. To her, the cast and crew were able to make the show an optimistic place.

“I think we did a great job of pulling together and providing encouragement to each other,” Mann said. “We had a great tradition that we call ‘good show’ where we stand outside in a circle as the audience is getting settled in their seats and we do a bunch of weird theater kid things.”

She thinks this helps the group center themselves and focus on the show. Personally, Mann will close her eyes before the show starts and think about what her character would be feeling to get rid of any thoughts that she might have. Overall, she is satisfied with the show and how everyone is working together to put on the best they can.

“The atmosphere is pretty good,” Mann said. “There’s some drama but nothing we can’t push through to work together and make a good show in the end.” 

Original Publication: https://macshieldonline.com/55545/entertainment/sweet-charity-show-comes-to-life-on-stage/