This year’s middle school musical wrapped up during the weekend of November 18-20. In case you missed it, here are some of the highlights. The musical was Willy Wonka Jr., which was last performed by the middle school in 2008. This means that the graduating class of 2015 was just in sixth grade at the time of the original performance of Willy Wonka Jr. at WT. The role of Charlie was played by James Counihan in 2008, and was recently played by 8th grader Liam Kress. 7th grader Phoenix Gordon played the title role of Willy Wonka.

Willy Wonka is not an easy show to do. There is flying, people turning blue, Oompa Loompas, a chocolate pipe, and, not to mention, a giant chocolate factory. All of these aspects are important to the plot of the show and, of course, difficult to put on stage. Having done this show before, Mrs. Machen, the director, already had some idea of how to use the “magic of theater” to make these things work. If you watched the show,  you saw Augustus go up the pipe of chocolate, and Violet blow up and turn blue, not to mention, the beautiful Chocolate Factory revealed in Act 2. Once again, after weeks upon weeks of rehearsal and hard work put in by the kids, the adults, and the crew, another great Middle School Musical was performed in the brand new WT auditorium.