In anticipation of the spring musical, Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical, theater will be hosting auditions coming this Oct. 9. 

Matilda was a decision both choir directors and theater directors made when looking at what shows they wanted to do for this academic year. 

“It’s a contemporary musical and we wanted to stick with the contemporary production,” choir director Ashley Hester said. “When we looked at what we have as strengths in our program like technical theater aspects and set aspects – it was the best fit for what we will do this year.”

Auditions are on Oct. 9, 2023 and callbacks are on Oct. 16, 2023. To sign up, students have to find the QR code posted around school and pick a three minute time slot for their audition.

“They will come in and they’ll introduce themselves, they’ll speak from a monologue that’s in the audition form,” Hester said. “Then they’ll sing, either a musical theater song or a disney song, but only about a minute of it.”

All Johnson students are able to audition for the musical. 

“There are actually 41 named characters in the show plus ensemble and chorus,” Hester said. “It’s a lot of roles, a lot of opportunities so I’m hoping for a lot more students this year.”

Producing the musical will be a bigger task compared to last year’s “Mamma Mia!” production.

“It’s a show that goes a lot of different places,” theater director Jay Asterman said. “We have a couple of different houses, we have the school, we have the gym, we have the cafeteria – there’s a lot of places to be.”

Theater received a donation from the playhouse in town which will help the technical department when building and organizing the sets for the show. These donations will help the technical department focus on other parts of the sets. 

“They were cleaning out their stock and they actually had a bunch of stuff from Matilda and so they just gave it to us, to the department.” Asterman said. “There were a bunch of things like desks, and cubes, and the seesaws, and some razor scooters, and a lot of hand props as well.”

Matilda will be performed Jan 24, 2024 to Jan 27, 2024. 

“That is the day we got to open,” Asterman said. “We had to sign contracts to be able to get the rights to produce the show and all that.” 

When students fill out the audition form, they also sign a contract confirming they will follow a list of responsibilities like learning their lines, learning the choreography, and being on time. 

“They sign and their parents sign,” Asterman said. “Knowing that they’re making a commitment to the production.”